BlockFi CEO Zac Prince agrees with United States Senator Elizabeth Warren that there is a lot of noise in the crypto industry. Still, he expects that the clarity that comes with regulations will positively impact the ecosystem. Describing regulators’ interest in crypto as a natural evolution of the technology, Prince said that discussions like Wednesday’s Senate Banking Committee hearings are very positive trends overall for the crypto sector. It’s easy to miss the forest for al the trees, he said, highlighting that crypto is an asset class that has generated substantial wealth for millions of people. “It’s been the best …

Rakiya Mohammed, an IT specialist at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced that the apex bank is making efforts to float a central bank digital currency in the country. According to a report by People’s Gazette, Mohammed made this known after the Bankers Committee meeting held in Abuja on Thursday, telling reporters: “Before the end of the year, the Central Bank will be making a special announcement and possibly launching a pilot scheme in order to be able to provide this kind of currency to the populace.” Back in May, CBN governor Godwin Emefiele had stated that digital …

The Bank of France and the Swiss National Bank are teaming up with the Bank for International Settlements’ Innovation Hub to test a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) system dubbed “Project Jura.” According to a release by the Bank of France on Thursday, the Project Jura pilot study will also draw participation from a private consortium led by global service company Accenture. Other establishments in the private consortium include Credit Suisse, UBS, SIX Digital Exchange and R3. The experiment will reportedly use two wholesale CBDCs — one pegged to the euro and the other pegged to the Swiss franc. …

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren did not mince words when it came to criticizing crypto, but seemed to consider a federally-backed digital currency as a possible solution to address problems around financial inclusion in the United States. At a Wednesday session of the Senate Banking Committee discussing a U.S. government-backed central bank digital currency, or CBDC, Warren said the recent explosion in cryptocurrencies had helped many people understand the foundational technology on which digital currencies were based. However, she called crypto a “fourth rate alternative to real currency.” “Digital currency from central banks has great promise,” said Warren. "Legitimate digital public …

The Bank of England is continuing to devote significant resources to researching digital money in both private and public forms. With an eye on both the domestic and international context, the central bank’s latest discussion paper, published June 7, outlines the role and possible developments of both in the ongoing evolution of money. Commenting on the paper’s publication, BoE governor Andrew Bailey said that “the prospect of stablecoins as a means of payment and the emerging propositions of CBDC have generated a host of issues that central banks, governments, and society as a whole, need to carefully consider and address. …

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) is reportedly moving towards the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) experiment. Speaking during a news conference in Ghana’s capital, Accra, on Monday, Ernest Addison, governor of the country’s central bank revealed that the BoG was in the advanced stages of creating a CBDC. As part of his address, Addison said that the planned e-cedi will pass through developmental and evaluation phases before a decision will be made on a national rollout. According to the BoG governor, the final stage will involve a pilot study to finalize issues concerning feasibility before the CBDC …

With the crypto market turning up its pace of growth over the last year and a half, the idea behind central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) seems to have gained an increasing amount of traction among many governments and retail banking institutions. In this regard, as per a study recently released by consulting giant PwC, more than 60 central banks have been exploring the unique value proposition put forth by CBDCs. Furthermore, it bears mentioning that following the dawn of the coronavirus pandemic, the use of physical cash has continued to dwindle globally, with many now transitioning to digital payments in …

The European Central Bank has warned that a CBDC or digital euro may be required to head off the spectre of “artificial currencies” dominating cross-border payments. In ECB’s annual review of the euro dubbed “The international role of the euro”, economists Massimo Ferrari and Arnaud Mehl conveyed concerns over the rise of artificial currencies led by unnamed “foreign tech giants” — likely a veiled reference to Facebook’s Diem project: “One concern could be a situation in which domestic and cross-border payments are dominated by non-domestic providers, including foreign tech giants potentially offering artificial currencies in the future.” “Not only could …

The Chinese government is launching another digital yuan lottery to stimulate its ongoing digital currency trials, this time in the capital of Beijing. The Beijing Local Financial Supervision and Administration officially announced Tuesday that the government will distribute 40 million digital yuan ($6.2 million) to Beijing residents as part of a new digital currency pilot. Starting in June, the program features “red envelopes” — a traditional way of gifting money — with each providing a free online wallet containing 200 digital yuan ($31). These red envelopes will be distributed to 200,000 lottery winners, who must download an application to use …

Cryptocurrencies’ persistent growth and ever more mainstream adoption are keeping international monetary authorities on their toes. In fresh comments this week, Stefan Ingves, the governor of Riksbank — Sweden’s central bank — said that digital assets’ rising popularity raises the stakes for regulators, central bankers and lawmakers worldwide: “When something gets big enough, things like consumer interests and money laundering come into play. So there’s good reason to believe that [regulation] will happen.” Devising regulatory frameworks for an asset that was initially designed to circumvent the very architecture and rules of traditional finance is no easy task. In the United …

China’s digital yuan will utilize smart contracts, and will be built to counter Alipay-like payment platforms designed by the privately-owned conglomerates, former People’s Bank of China director Yao Qian said. Speaking at the International Finance Forum in Beijing, Qian argued that simply simulating its physical counterpart would not be enough for the digital yuan to succeed. To fully benefit from being digital, it will move toward the "smart currency" by making use of smart contracts, he added, according to local sources. Central banks need to innovate the legal fiat money to keep up with the tides of digitalization, he said. …

Sweden has made a number of strides toward its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC, called the e-krona. The Sveriges Riksbank, the country’s central bank, now looks to experiment with the asset using a non-simulated party. As reported by Reuters, Riksbank detailed on Friday via a statement: “The e-krona pilot is therefore moving on from only having simulated participants, to cooperation with external participants in the test environment.” The experiment will involve participation between Riksbank and Handelsbanken, a retail bank chain based in Sweden. In January, Riksbank elaborated that its e-krona proof-of-concept harnesses Corda, a distributed ledger technology, or …