Paolo Ardoino, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Bitfinex and Tether, says recent pushes for governments to adopt regulatory paths towards central bank digital currencies won’t adversely affect stablecoins like Tether. “In the long term, we believe that Tether will continue to exist alongside CBDCs,” the Tether CTO said to Cointelegraph, citing the token’s performance on several different blockchains including Algorand, Ethereum, EOS, Liquid Network, Omni and Tron. “Tether will remain in demand as it continues serving and unifying a variety of ecosystems.” Governments pushing for CBDCs Cointelegraph reported on July 15 that the Japanese government was planning to include consideration …

Cities in China will soon begin testing a new Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC. Scammers are now taking advantage of this fact by impersonating “CBDC test” groups. According to Tencent QQ, criminals are promoting a scam that asks potential victims to open a new debit card. Victims are told they will receive a “significant amount of money” after an initial investment, generally starting around 10,000 yuan ($1430 USD). Each victim is promised that their investment will grow to 70,000 yuan ($10,023) within an undisclosed period. This scam seems to be appearing most frequently in the cities where CBDC tests …

Banque de France has picked eight potential candidates to test the integration of a CBDC for interbank settlements, according to the announcement published earlier today. The list of approved participants includes mainstream juggernauts like Accenture, HSBC, and Societe Generale, as well as smaller crypto-focused players like Seba Bank and LiquidShare. The announcement follows the central bank’s call for applications to experiment with the use of a digital euro, which it posted in March. At the time, the institution said it would select a maximum of 10 CBDC-related applications, with “innovative nature” being one of the main selection criteria. Now, the …

The Bank of Japan announced on July 20 that it had formed a new team to accelerate research into the feasibility of central bank digital currencies (CBDC). The team takes over from a previous group formed earlier this year, and will also continue research work undertaken with other central banks. BoJ said it does not currently have plans to issue its own CBDC, although this could change in the future. BoJ was already conducting research into the feasibility of a national CBDC, and formed a digital currency working group with five other central banks from Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, …

Despite the global economic crisis and the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the development of the Chinese national cryptocurrency, the Digital Currency Electronic Payment, is steadily progressing. The increase in the number of large companies joining the digital yuan initiative as partners in testing and implementing the technology is clear evidence of the progress the project is making in its development. Meituan Dianping, the country’s largest wholesale and delivery platform for products, has become the latest corporation to agree to assist the People’s Bank of China in testing and implementing the initiative. The platform currently has almost 450 million customers …

Thailand’s central bank has reportedly entered a new phase in the development of its central bank digital currency, or CBDC. The Bank of Thailand, or BOT, has reportedly deployed its CBDC, and has been using the digital currency for financial transactions with some large businesses, local English-language newspaper The Nation reports July 16. Thailand to roll out CBDC testing with the Hong Kong’s central bank in September The bank has entered the third phase in development of the digital baht and plans to expand to more businesses, BOT assistant governor, Vachira Arromdee, reportedly announced on Wednesday. According to the report, …

With cross-border interoperable blockchain systems gaining traction across the globe, it comes as no surprise that an increasing number of government agencies are looking to explore the full potential of this technology to make international transactions hassle-free in addition to ensuring the process is streamlined and transparent for users. In this regard, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, announced on July 13 that its much-talked-about blockchain payments project, Project Ubin, was finally ready for mainstream commercial deployment. The project’s roots can be traced all the way back to 2017, a time when the Singaporean government was seeking to develop …

Sky Guo, founder of the Cypherium blockchain, predicts that central bank digital currency cross-border payments will happen “in the next couple years” or “even sooner”. In an interview with Cointelegraph on July 13, Guo said that CBDC development among central banks makes it likely that certain countries in European Union, China and America, will take the lead and experiment with cross-border payments sooner than expected. CBDC cross border challenges Countries around the world are experimenting with CBDC pilots domestically, such as ride-sharing giant Didi signing “a strategic partnership” with the Digital Currency Research Institute of The People's Bank of China. …

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is planning to add the Tencent-backed food delivery giant Meituan Dianping to its list of platforms that will test real-world use cases of the digital yuan. Meituan Dianping is a Beijing-based food delivery platform that currently boasts of more than 435 million active users and billions of dollars of daily transactions. This creates a huge opportunity for the mass adoption of the digital yuan, which is also referred to as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment or DCEP. Unnamed sources told Bloomberg that Meituan had been in talks with the research arm of China’s central …

The Japanese government is expected to include consideration of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in its official economic plan. The news comes 10 days after the Bank of Japan’s announcement that it will start experimenting with the digital yen to check its feasibility from a technical perspective. According to Nikkei, the consideration of CBDC will be included in the Honebuto Plan for Economic and Fiscal Revitalization. The Honebuto Plan is the basis for Japan’s economic and fiscal policy and the report says the Japanese government “will consider a CBDC while coordinating with other countries”. Japan and CBDC After China …

The Bank of England is considering the issuance of a central bank digital currency — or CBDC — according to its governor, Andrew Bailey. Bloomberg reports that during a student webinar, the head of the Bank of England acknowledged that they are looking into the possibility of issuing a digital currency: “We are looking at the question of, should we create a Bank of England digital currency. We’ll go on looking at it, as it does have huge implications on the nature of payments and society. I think in a few years time, we will be heading toward some sort …

Singapore authorities announced today that their blockchain payments project, Project Ubin, is complete and ready for commercial launch. The Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, first undertook Project Ubin in 2017 with plans to first develop a digitized Singapore dollar (SGD). The next steps involved exploring blockchain and distributed ledger technology to build a system for the clearing and settlement of payments and securities using digital SGD. For the final phase of the project, MAS worked in collaboration with the Singapore-based investment company Temasek and the American investment bank JPMorgan. MAS had successfully completed the development of the payments network …