China’s central bank and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, or HKMA, are in the preliminary stages of piloting the digital yuan for cross-border payments — underscoring another key development in the rollout of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. In a media release that appeared on the HKMA website on Friday, chief executive Eddie Yue provided an update on the ongoing work surrounding cross-border payments. He indicated that HKMA is in dialogue with the People’s Bank of China, or PBoC, to begin pilot testing the e-CNY. Yue said: “The HKMA and the Digital Currency Institute of People’s Bank of …

The Bank for International Settlements and the Swiss National Bank and are exploring the benefits of implementing a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, using blockchain technology. According to a Dec. 3 announcement, the BIS Innovation Hub Swiss Centre, or BISIH, has successfully completed two proofs-of-concept linking existing payment systems to a distributed ledger and settling tokenized assets with a wholesale CBDC. Known as “Project Helvetia,” the new initiative is a joint venture from the BISIH, the SNB and Switzerland’s top stock exchange, Six Group. The exchange stated that Project Helvetia explored the technological and legal feasibility of transferring digital …

There are technical limits to even the most technologically ambitious of central banks. So says Sky Guo, CEO of Cypherium — an enterprise blockchain platform that has partnered with a number of Chinese cities and has worked with projected central bank digital currencies. “CBDC is definitely really hot with central banks these days,” said Guo. CBDCs are all the rage this year, largely due to a surge in fiat-pegged stablecoin value and a sudden interest in upgrading non-cash systems amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But while the talk surrounding CBDCs involves language taken from the world of blockchain-backed digital currencies, even …

Spotify, one of the world’s largest streaming audio providers, is looking for candidates with a crypto background to fill a new role at the company. According to a recent job post, the company is looking for an outstanding associate director to join its payments strategy and innovation department. According to an announcement on LinkedIn, the new job listing was published on Wednesday. The new position is expected to play a key role in defining and implementing Spotify’s payments strategy as well as furthering the company’s involvement in Facebook's recently rebranded crypto project, Diem. The position will also focus on wider …

Timothy Lane, deputy governor of the Bank of Canada and head of research at the bank’s fintech and crypto department, claimed that Canada’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, might see the light of the day “sooner than expected." Lane delivered his remarks in a Tuesday interview on the Bank of Canada’s approach to digital payment systems. According to Lane, the predicted decline in COVID-19-fueled cash transactions has been happening more rapidly than the bank had previously expected. This could trigger the bank to issue a CBDC sooner that it originally planned: “In February, we identified two scenarios that we …

Speaking during the Ethereum in the Enterprise — Asia Pacific 2020 conference on Dec. 3, ConsenSys founder and Ethereum contributor, Joseph Lubin, predicted that Eth2 will devour Ethereum in “the not-too-distant future.” “People in the know around the ecosystem are very optimistic about how fast things could unfold, as the really complicated work has been done in launching Phase 0,” he said. While the Eth2 rollout was believed to be occurring in strictly regimented “phases,” Lubin emphasized that the other aspects of Eth2’s rollout are “proceeding in parallel” — meaning upgrades to the protocol may come much sooner than many …

China’s central bank digital currency is expected to further exacerbate Macau’s declining gambling revenues. According to a Dec. 2 article from Bloomberg, junkets — Macau businesses that act as middlemen to facilitate visits by China’s high-roller gamblers — claim their clients are looking to other jurisdictions due to concerns the digital yuan will be introduced to Macau’s embattled gambling sector. The report cites anonymous sources who claim local casino operators have been approached by Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau to discuss the viability of denominating casino chip purchases in digital yuan rather than Hong Kong dollars, as is presently …

Senior officials at the Bank of Russia have come out against the issuance of private stablecoins pegged to the Russian ruble. Sergei Shvetsov, a first deputy governor of the Russian central bank, said that the bank aims to ban private firms from offering stablecoins backed by the country’s fiat currency. Russian crypto developers will only be able to use the Bank of Russia’s digital ruble, Shvetsov said. According to a Nov. 30 report by local news agency Prime, the he said that this approach follows the “philosophy of the means of payment’s uniqueness.” Shvetsov referred to China’s digital yuan-related regulations …

British economic and financial historian Niall Ferguson said the United States needs to find its own path in adopting cryptocurrencies, rather than “building [its] own versions of China’s electronic payments systems.” In a Bloomberg opinion piece, Ferguson said Sunday that the current pandemic has generally been good for cryptocurrency adoption, accelerating a “monetary revolution” around the world. However, the historian noted that China has been “advancing rapidly” in the rollout of its digital yuan and increasing use of mobile payments. Apps like Alipay and WeChat Pay reportedly handle roughly $40 trillion in transactions annually. The historian believes that these measures …

Several experts from various European banks agreed that even a proof of concept for a digital euro is four or five years away. In a panel on Monday called "Upgrading Money to the Digital Age: Introducing Digital Euro," participants agreed that the current task was primarily one of getting everyone onboard with the specifics of a digital euro, putting any real implementation well into the future. Central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, have been an extremely popular topic of debate in recent years, but especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Austėja Šostakaitė of the European Central Bank said …

Central banks from two of the most powerful economies in the Middle East released a report today on a yearlong joint central bank digital currency (CBDC) project — and results speak glowingly of blockchain technology. First announced in January of 2019, Project Aber was a joint effort between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to establish a “proof of concept” designed to “contribute in the body of knowledge in CBDC and DLT technologies.” The combined effort of two central banks in such a study is among the first of its kind. To this end, the report notes that the …

Editor’s note As many of you were certainly following in real time, a bull market gave way to a bloodbath yesterday, which happened to be Thanksgiving in the United States. Personally, I’ve never thought that Bitcoin’s (BTC) price was any sort of proof of its value proposition, but for many, its retreat yesterday certainly dashed many a planned gloat to family members more receptive to massive gains than concepts like censorship resistance. But obviously, volatility is part of the game with cryptocurrencies. One of the more prominent solutions to this problem has been the rise of stablecoins, especially following the …