E-commerce giant JD.com accepts China's digital currency for world's biggest shopping event

• JD.com is accepting e-CNY for payment on its e-commerce platform during the Singles Day promotional period.
• More than 100,000 people have used e-CNY on the company's app during the promo period so far, JD said.

$4 is allowing customers to make payments with China's digital currency for $4 - the biggest shopping event in the world.

The e-commerce giant said in December it would begin accepting the digital yuan. But this is the first Singles Day that JD is taking the "e-CNY," marking its broadest-scale trial yet.

According to JD, over 100,000 customers have paid using e-CNY on the JD shopping app during the Singles Day promotional period, which first began October 31. Users also receive 15 yuan ($2.34) when they download China's digital currency app via JD's download link.

Last year, Singles Day across all platforms had a gross merchandise value of $4 ($131.3 billion), making it bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. This year, some of that yuan will be replaced with China's central bank digital currency.

While the e-CNY is not a cryptocurrency, it is a digital version of the country's currency that, eventually, will be launched nationwide.

Meanwhile, the People's Bank of China has been $4. As of the end of October, more than 140 million people have opened wallets for the digital yuan, which has been used for transactions totalling 62 billion yuan ($9.7 billion), a central bank official said earlier this month.