Chinese e-commerce giant and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA) competitor JD.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: JD) will become China's first platform to begin accepting a digital version of the country's currency, according to Reuters.

What Happened: Reuters reported that the company will accept payments in digital yuan through its fintech arm JD Digits. For now, this will be for only a limited number of products and available only to residents of Suzhou, a city near Shanghai.

A lottery will be used to issue 200 digital yuan “red envelopes”  to 100,000 consumers.

Larger Plan: Through its central bank, the People’s Bank of China, China has been pushing to be at the forefront of national digital currencies. Suzhou has been among a handful of cities where trial programs have begun this year.

Consumers in the country widely use mobile payments. Official mobile wallets would help handle potential crashes of mobile payment systems, while also giving the government greater control over how money is used.

Unlike Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the Chinese digital yuan allows officials to track all digital cash in circulation.

Photo courtesy Digital Yuan Trader.

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