OKCoin Gives Away $1.6 Million in Bitcoin for Chinese New Year

UPDATE (27th February 09:17 GMT): Updated with comment from OKCoin regarding the analysis of the campaign.

The company said: "The campaign lasted for roughly a week, with a consistent engagement from the domestic market. OKCoin’s red envelopes gave away a total of 10 million RMB, making this the largest initiative on Chinese soil."

The digital-only giveaway, which stems from the Chinese tradition of exchanging red envelopes containing money, was conducted through the WeChat messaging app account of the exchange's OKLink multisig wallet and merchant services platform.

The exchange said: "Users who followed our OKLink site were able to send and receive red envelopes. The amount in each of the envelopes varied and were sent to those who signed up to follow our OKLink account on We Chat, consequently with the incentive to claim their red envelope by signing in to our OKLink wallets."

A spokesperson for OKCoin said:

"The level of engagement was one of the key indicators of this campaign's success. Roughly half a million new users engaged, and within the first four hours of the campaign over 100,000 individuals were already receiving their red envelopes."

The spokesperson continued: "Regarding the number of users, we measured that figure in accordance to the number of new accounts that were opened and registered during the promotion. As for the amount of bitcoin invested, that amount derived from our company's budget for domestic martketing."

OKCoin is planning an English-language version of its red envelope campaign for its international audience and will release a statement soon.

A similar initiative during the Chinese New Year's celebrations was launched by the Melbourne Bitcoin Technology Centre (MBTC) and the Bitcoin Group, which gave away red envelopes containing bitcoin paper wallets in Melbourne's Chinatown precinct.

Chinese New Year image via Shutterstock