The development of China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) continues to advance. 

On Wednesday this week, a major domestic e-commerce platform and a video sharing site both became involved in the CBDC project, according to a local news report.

Meituan and Bilibilibili have both started to work with several banks involved in China’s digital yuan project. With over 240 million consumers and five million local merchants, Meituan is a major service platform, whilst Bilibilibili is renowned as the country’s largest video sharing website.

Furthermore, multinational technology firm, ByteDance, is also rumoured to be holding talks with the banks in regard to collaborating with China’s central bank digital currency.

Earlier this week, Cointelegraph reported that ride-sharing company Didi has entered into “a strategic partnership” with the Digital Currency Research Institute of the PBoC.

DiDi and the central bank’s think tank will be working on “the world’s largest one-stop on-demand transportation platform.” 

According to a statement: “Under PBOC’s overall DCEP strategy and operation timeline, DiDi's DCEP taskforce will design and implement pilot DCEP projects in accordance with rigorous safety, security and governance standards.”

Recognised as the Uber of China, DiDi has 550 million users in Asia, Latin America and Australia. The principal services are public transportation and food delivery, with plans to develop an autonomous vehicles subsidiary and have over half a million driverless cars by 2030.

“AI in transportation will no doubt revolutionise the safety and efficiency of the urban transit system,” stated Cheng Wei, founder and CEO of Didi Chuxing. 

“Didi’s biggest strengths are in our rich use cases, data capabilities and long-term commitment to what we believe to be a clear direction for the future,” he added.

According to data from CB Insights, DiDi is the world’s second-highest-valued unicorn startup, valued at $56 billion.