Cash is unlikely to disappear anytime soon despite declining use as a payment method and the surge of digital currencies, Germany’s largest bank says. Deutsche Bank, a German multinational investment bank that previously predicted that cryptocurrencies will replace fiat by 2030, now claims that cash “will be around for a long time” as a preferred method of payment. Deutsche Bank Research issues three reports on the future of payments The bank has forecast a tentative future for cash in one of its recent “The Future of Payments” reports carried out by Deutsche Bank’s research arm Deutsche Bank Research. Titled “Cash: …

Major global economists credit Facebook’s Libra with pushing the world to start reconsidering the United States dollar as anchor currency. At a Jan. 23 panel at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, officials and financial experts discussed one of the most important mechanisms in the global financing system — the U.S. dollar, which has become the world’s reserve currency. Libra evoked a future digital currency Called “Challenging the Dominance of the Dollar,” the panel focused on factors that make the U.S. dollar the world’s dominant payment system and reserve currency, as well as the fact that countries over …

The former chairman of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has some new remarks regarding his Digital Dollar initiative, speaking in Davos. On Jan. 22, Ex-CFTC chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo confirmed that the Digital Dollar project will consider the advantages of a United States’ central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to written remarks for a Davos event hosted by industry media outlet The Block. At the event, Giancarlo is scheduled to deliver his first public speech devoted to the blockchain-based Digital Dollar project, first announced last week. Digital Dollar project will develop a framework practical steps to establish …

The former head of payments and settlements at the Bank of Japan (BOJ) says Facebook’s Libra galvanized central banks globally to look seriously into digital currency issuance. A Jan. 22 Reuters report cited remarks by Hiromi Yamaoka, who reportedly oversaw the BOJ’s research into digital currencies as part of his erstwhile role and continues to communicate closely with international central bank policymakers. He is presently a board member at IT consultancy firm Future Corp. The private-public debate As reported yesterday, the central banks of Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, European Union, Sweden and Switzerland have just announced their creation of …

Coinbase Card, a crypto-powered Visa debit card from major crypto exchange Coinbase, now supports Dai (DAI), a stablecoin pegged to the United States dollar. According to a blog post on Dec. 6, Dai is the first stablecoin that is available on Coinbase Card, alongside major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC). As 1 DAI is equivalent to $1, the addition of the stablecoin to the Coinbase Card aims to allow customers to spend crypto with less volatility, the announcement says. Cointelegraph has requested comment from Coinbase’s team on why the company has decided to choose DAI rather than …

Bitcoin (BTC) bulls will no doubt keenly watch talk of the need for “a new, neutral global reserve asset” at the heart of the traditional financial sphere. Financial Times business columnist and associate editor Rana Foroohar published an opinion piece on Nov. 25, pointing to the renewed, half-justified “paranoia” of the “gold bugs,” which has only been compounded by comments from investors and central bankers in recent weeks. “You have to really believe the sky is falling in order to hoard physical bars in a digital age,” Foroohor writes. And while she does not put her faith in gold itself, …

Kraken, one of the largest and oldest Bitcoin (BTC) exchanges in the world, has joined the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN). By joining SEN, the United States-based cryptocurrency exchange enables its clients to deposit and withdraw U.S. dollars from Silvergate accounts with no fees, the firm announced Nov. 27. According to the announcement, the depositing process will be different based on whether Kraken users have a Silvergate account. If they have an account at Silvergate, Kraken users will simply have to enable SEN funding on their Kraken account before using the option. Those who do not have a Silvergate account will …

Stablecoins have the potential to temper the systemic threats posed by the United States dollar’s domination of global foreign currency reserves, according to an opinion piece published by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The argument was made by the Fusion Foundation’s John Liu and Lapa Capital’s Peter Lyons in an article published on the WEF’s Agenda on Nov. 26 The Fusion Foundation is a non-profit organization focused on developing blockchain infrastructure for decentralized global finance; Lapa Capital is a tech-focused investment firm headquartered in New York. IMF: USD accounts for 62% of all central bank foreign reserves Liu and Lyons …

Alan Greenspan, the former chair of the United States Federal Reserve (Fed), has said there’s “no point” for central banks to issue their own digital currencies. According to a CNBC report on Nov. 11, Greenspan made his comments during the annual economic outlook conference hosted by Chinese financial magazine Caijing. No point in Libra either Greenspan’s argument reportedly hinged on the fact that national fiat currencies are backed by sovereign credit — a provision that is exclusive to the nation-state and its institutional structure. Not even the tech behemoths in the age of FAANG’s ascendancy — an acronym for the …

Canadian blockchain research firm Blockchain Venture Capital Inc. (BVCI) has officially launched a United States dollar-pegged stablecoin, the CUSD, according to a press release published on Nov. 11. The new USD-anchored stablecoin comes four months after the firm launched CADT, a stablecoin initiative pegged to Canada’s national fiat currency. CUSD is pegged 1:1 to USD As reported, BVCI debuted CADT stablecoin in conjunction with last Canada Day on July 1. With one CUSD equivalent to one USD, the new stablecoin is expected to be used by people and businesses, and specifically targets cross border transactions between the U.S. and Canada, …

Coinbase’s legal chief, Brian Brooks, feels that the United States government should take a step back and allow the private sector to create the U.S. digital dollar. Private sector should build the technology In a Fortune piece on Nov. 4, Brooks asked whether the U.S. government should create the digital dollar, or whether the private sector can do so more effectively. The answer to that question, according to Brooks, is also the best path forward, saying: “The best path forward is one that harnesses our country’s remarkable capacity for innovation and also reflects government’s historical practice of setting broad guide …

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that India — like many others, in his view — is showing a high degree of caution in regard to Facebook’s Libra. During last week’s 2019 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington, D.C. — which included a discussion of the Libra project — Sitharaman told reporters from the New Indian Express that: “On our side, the Reserve Bank Governor spoke about it during our turn to intervene. I got the sense that many countries were cautioning on rushing into this [...]. Countries will have to show extreme …