South Korea's central bank, the Bank of Korea, has formed a legal advisory group to evaluate issues surrounding a potential central bank-issued digital currency (CBDC) launch. According to a press release the central bank issued earlier today, the group includes six experts, namely three professors, two lawyers and one BOK official. The panel will reportedly operate until May 2020, although the BOK’s CBDC plans are not set in stone. Notably, back in April the central bank launched a 22 month-long pilot scheme to assess the logistics of issuing a CBDC, meaning that the program will operate longer than the newly …

China has emerged as the world’s leader in central bank digital currency, or CBDC, development, driving speculation surrounding the country’s domestic and international ambitions for its CBDC. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Glenn Woo, Ledger Vault’s head of the Asia-Pacific region, predicted that China’s state-backed virtual currency will be the first to launch worldwide. Woo emphasized the speed with which China’s government can deploy major initiatives on a national scale, suggesting that its early CBDC trials with 19 businesses including Starbucks and McDonalds may quickly grow to encompass a much larger pilot. He said: “I believe when it does come, it’s going …

United Kingdom-based blockchain firm L3COS has submitted a proposal to the Bank of England, or BoE, for a blockchain-based operating system to power a central bank-issued digital currency, or CBDC. L3COS described the proposal as a response to the consultation document on CBDC published by BoE in March — which identified several benefits and challenges associated with central bank virtual currencies and invited feedback from technology providers, financial institutions, and academics. Blockchain firm pitches CBDC system to BoE In an article published by U.K.-based outlet Verdict on June 12, L3COS founder and chief executive Zurab Ashvil proclaimed that the firm’s …

Editor’s note: These are times strange enough that every conversation seems to include some verbal acknowledgment like “strange times, huh?” A quasi-anarchist police-free leftist separatist bubble has formed and is growing on Seattle’s Capitol Hill — a sentence that resembles a David Foster Wallace plot more than anything I ever anticipated treating as news. Both India and Russia have been hemming and hawing over long-discussed crypto bans, while the latter will be voting on controversial constitutional amendments allowing Vladimir Putin to extend his already 20-year term as president of the Russian Federation. This vote will reportedly be happening on a …

In a June 11 hearing before the Congressional Fintech Task Force, everyone seemed to agree that they could improve financial inclusion by giving people more direct access to FedAccounts, which may operate using a digital dollar. What exactly a digital dollar looks like will probably be more controversial. Unity at yesterday’s hearing was encouraging Congressman Warren Davidson (R-OH), a member of the Fintech Task Force as well as a noted crypto advocate, was pleased with the tone of the hearing, overall. He was at earlier hearings for Facebook’s Libra, which he saw as turning into an indictment of Facebook rather …

On June 11, the Congressional Fintech Task Force held a hearing examining FedAccounts and a digital dollar as ways of expanding financial inclusion in the United States. Particularly in the aftermath of greatly delayed $1200 stimulus payments directly to U.S. citizens, the digital dollar has gotten much more attention. A number of bills appeared in the wake of the CARES Act calling for FedAccounts and digital dollars as means of streamlining aid distribution. Upgrading financial tools as a public good Morgan Ricks, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who recently spoke with Cointelegraph about the digital dollar, said in today’s …

South Korean media outlets suggest that local merchants could accept the upcoming digital yuan as a payment method once the COVID-19 pandemic passes and Chinese tourist flow increases in the country. According to news agency Yonhap, domestic merchants have been increasingly considering taking advantage of China’s upcoming digital currency, citing some tourist shops in their examples. Taking advantage of Chinese tourism The report details that in Seoul’s Myeongdong district, some stores have been accepting payments using Alipay, thus showing interest in customers from China. Reports indicate that the COVID-19 crisis has caused damages close to $2 billion in tourism income. …

The Bank of Ghana (BoG) remains committed to piloting a central bank digital currency (CBDC), the bank’s first deputy governor has said. Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari made the comment during a virtual stakeholder workshop on payment systems and services, according to a report from GhanaWeb on June 8. This spring, the central bank established a Fintech and Innovation Office to foster development in the local industry, and has in recent years adapted its organizational structure to respond to major changes in the payments sector. Notwithstanding these approaches to encouraging electronic cash transactions, Opoku-Afari emphasized that the bank’s specific CBDC pilot plans …

The Marshall Islands’ project says its creation of a digital sovereign currency, named SOV, aims to be a “game-changer”. It could also pioneer how governments respond to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Joel Telpner, chairman of Sullivan’s Fintech and Blockchain Practice and Marshall Islands crypto advisor, highlighted that the project still faces “a lot” of challenges ahead, but looks forward to making the work “rewarding.” The current phase of SOV’s project Telpner said that the Islands’ government is currently in an 18 month phase. They’ll be issuing what’s called “preSOV,” which will later …

The global monetary system has been centered around the United States dollar since at least the end of World War II when the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement formalized the greenback’s ascent to unchallenged dominance. Control over the world’s reserve currency came hand in hand with a boost to the nation’s already enormous geopolitical influence, as well as the ability to run huge deficits at low cost. Today, a growing chorus of experts believe that the dollar’s hegemony might be in a decline. America’s diminishing share of world trade, the expansion of China’s monetary power and the anticipated digitization of national …

On May 26, Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, a representative from the International Monetary Fund, stated that moving forward, the best way to harness the potential of central bank digital currencies would be by fostering synthetic partnerships between the private and public sectors. Further expounding his views on the matter, the deputy division chief of the IMF’s monetary capital and markets department stated that the vision behind CBDCs being completely under the control of a central bank is now an outdated one and that the entry of private players could help spur innovation. When asked about how such a partnership could even start …

On May 28, the Digital Dollar Project released its white paper, a 30-page document detailing the potential applications of a CBDC. The white paper continues the nascent think tank’s work to push forward development of a digital dollar. The project and the tenets of the new white paper The paper details certain core tenets of what it considers a digital dollar and what it will push forward. The Digital Dollar Project was founded by former leaders of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and professional services company Accenture. One of those founders is Daniel Gorfine, the head of the CFTC’s fintech …