Because paying digitally based on private solutions is already a well-functioning daily experience for Chinese people, encouraging them to change their behaviour and adopt CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) seems quite a burden. However, payments are a network industry, so it is crucial to attract a broad user base as soon as possible.
For this reason, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) distributed an amount of CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) for free to nudge payers to adopt it. For sure, there might be certain features of CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) which could be considered unique from a user perspective, like offline capability or a specific focus on privacy.