WeChat Pay, the payment arm of China's most popular social networking application, WeChat, has started accepting payments using the country's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), crypto media outlet CryptoSlate reported on March 7.

WeChat Pay currently has over one billion monthly active users and only allows digital yuan payments for certain transactions, such as McDonald's orders and bill payments. Direct digital yuan transactions between WeChat users are anticipated to be made possible in the near future.

This move makes WeChat Pay the second platform to support the digital yuan after Alibaba Group's Alipay. However, the digital yuan is still experiencing problems with adoption, and Chinese financial institutions are extending their efforts to increase the nation’s digital currency adoption.

Furthermore, China is becoming more interested in the metaverse, with seven provinces and cities announcing roadmaps to become the "main attraction for metaverse development and innovation." Thus, Shanghai, the capital of China, supports similar initiatives and towards the end of 2022 established a $149 million (1 billion yuan) metaverse fund.

Source: CRYPTOSLATE