In a June 24 webinar put on by the Chamber of Digital Commerce, major figures from the crypto community spoke about the growing role of stablecoins. Long-term view of stablecoins One of the guests was Jeremy Allaire, the founder of Circle, which is behind USD-backed stablecoin USDC. On the subject of stablecoins simplifying payments all over the world, Allaire compared the prospective upgrades to many relatively recent developments that we take for granted: “We’ll look back in the same way that we look back at long-distance calls or the way we look back at snail mail or the way we …
In advance of its coming annual report, on June 24 the Bank for International Settlements released a special chapter from that report on digital payments — especially central bank digital currencies, a topic that’s attracted tremendous interest in recent months. The report encourages central banks to treat CBDCs as their future, saying: “One option at the frontier of policy opportunities is the issuance of CBDCs, which could amount to a sea change.” A recent shift in favor of CBDCs The BIS found that there had been a major bullish shift in sentiment for CBDCs since the beginning of this year …
There is an old saying in China: “Building the road is the first step to becoming rich.” Asian countries use infrastructure to boost the economy, and China is probably the most aggressive one — its annual average infrastructure spending is one of the highest at 8.3% of its gross domestic product from 2010 to 2015, according to data from Statista. In the last two decades, China has built the most highways and high-speed railways, and it has now decided to extend the infrastructure development to a digital dimension. China’s “new infrastructure” plan includes blockchain technology, 5G, artificial intelligence and cloud …
Central bank digital currencies continue to be a popular topic of discussion within the crypto and broader financial circle, with China often dominating the headlines owing to the progress of its planned digital yuan project. On June 22, a former central bank senior official revealed that the country had completed the backend infrastructure for its planned CBDC. While China’s proposed digital currency electronic payment, or DCEP, system has been some time in the making, the emergence of Facebook’s Libra in 2019 reportedly triggered an accelerated developmental path. Indeed, Libra’s original plan for a token backed by a basket of fiat …
The Italian Banking Association (ABI) has revealed it would be willing to support the implementation of a digital currency from the European Central Bank. According to a June 18 update on the ABI website, the association had approved guidelines governing its position on digital currency and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The ABI—representing a group of banks in Italy—stated it was ready to “participate in projects and experiments regarding a digital currency from the European Central Bank [...] to speed up the implementation of a European-level initiative.” “Digital money needs to be fully trusted by citizens. To this end, it …
As countries around the world dive into central bank digital currencies (CBDC), many in the crypto industry look forward to what that means for adoption and even lucrative partnerships to develop such tokens. However, at least some commentators have noted that national CBDCs will likely disappoint those looking to update monetary policy. “A change in packaging” Speaking to Cointelegraph, Ido Sadeh Man and Barry Topf — respectively the founder and chief economist of Saga, a global stablecoin project — cautioned against the wave of optimism surrounding CBDCs. “It’s basically a change in packaging, a change in technology. A welcome change,” …
The former vice-chair of the People’s Bank of China’s National Council for Social Security Fund, Wang Zhongmin, announced that China has completed the backend architecture development of China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC). Wang made the announcement during the online 2020 Fintech Forum organized by Tencent Fintech Research Institute and the Fintech 50 Forum in Beijing. With so many cryptocurrencies already in existence and in development, China is seeking to create a payment infrastructure in which these currencies can co-exist with sovereign digital currencies. Wang said that such a system will create an environment in the digital currency space for …
Singapore's central bank and financial regulatory authority is looking to cooperate with China in the field of central bank digital money. Ravi Menon, the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, has voiced the country’s readiness to enter into a close cooperation with China in relation to digital currencies. Speaking at a financial forum in Shanghai, Menon highlighted China’s progress in the development of its central bank digital currency, or CBDC, known as the digital yuan. Singapore, which is also actively exploring blockchain-based CBDCs, is looking to exchange related knowledge and expertise with China, Sina Finance reports …
The Bank of Thailand announced that it plans to develop a prototype to test real-life business use cases of its central bank digital currency (CBDC). The bank said in its official statement that before it launches the CBDC payment system for all businesses, it plans to test it with large-scale enterprises. They have partnered with the largest cement and building material provider in Thailand, Siam Cement Group (SCG), and Thailand-based fintech firm Digital Ventures Company Limited to pilot test their payment prototype system. The project is scheduled to start in July 2020 and the pilot test with SCG is expected …
In a hearing on June 17 before the House Committee on Financial Services, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell got into an exchange with Representative Tom Emmer (R-MN) over the subject of a central bank digital currency. Is there any progress on the digital dollar? Emmer asked “What substantive recent actions has the Fed taken to understand and experiment with this technology?” Powell said the Fed needed to be on top of the issue, but did not actually mention any actions of substance at all: “We owe it to the public that we serve to be up to speed. …
Days into his term as acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Brian Brooks spoke with Cointelegraph on how he hopes to update legacy systems with crypto technology. Brooks came to the OCC from a role running Coinbase’s legal team only months ago, which informs a great deal of what he identifies as areas for improvement. He took charge of the OCC only seven weeks later upon the departure of Joseph Otting. Regarding the role of crypto in conversations in Washington D.C., Brooks noted a sea change. The government is curious, which may partially explain his …
Chinese officials are reportedly planning to create an East Asia digital currency to assert more independence from the United States dollar and foster trade relations within the region. According to a recent Nikkei Asia report, 10 members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body, proposed creating a digital currency that would be backed by a basket of currencies including the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen, South Korean won and Hong Kong dollar. The article does not specify which blockchain the projected cryptocurrency would be based on. The proposal was reportedly put forward by Neil Shen, …