Stablecoins were supposed to be the boring uncle of the crypto world — safe, sensible and dull. They’re probably not what Satoshi Nakamoto had in mind, but they’re supposed to be a reassuring haven of calm and utility away from the turbulence of pure-play cryptocurrencies. With values pegged to fiat currencies, stablecoins were intended to be useful rather than to offer get-rich-quick schemes. They play an important role in the cryptocurrency ecosystem by providing a safer place to store capital without having to cash out entirely, and allowing assets to be denominated in fiat currencies rather than volatile tokens. However, …

A United States-based lobbying group has raised a voice against developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the United States. The National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU) believes the project’s cost outweighs the “hypothesized benefits.” In a public letter to the U.S. Commerce Department, dated Tuesday, Andrew Morris, the senior counsel for research and policy at NAFCU, claimed that the costs would outweigh the benefits and that there are superior alternatives for accomplishing the same objectives. The letter came in response to the Department’s request for comment (RFC) on digital assets. While the full text of the letter …

A note published by the United States Federal Reserve at a recently held conference found a majority of exports believe a U.S. dollar central bank digital currency (CBDC) would not drastically change the global currency ecosystem. Panelists at the conference also agreed that CBDC development outside of the U.S. doesn’t threaten the status of the dollar, but the development of cryptocurrencies could alter the role of the dollar globally, with some saying stablecoins could even boost the U.S. dollar's role as the global dominant reserve currency. The assessments came from expert panelists at a June 16 and 17 conference hosted …

As reported by local news outlet bnext.com on Wednesday, Chin-long Yang, governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan), recommended a no-interest design for the country's central bank digital currency, or CBDC, pilot. In explaining the decision, Yang said that a CBDC where interest is paid on digital asset deposits would likely become a replacement for fiat New Taiwan dollar (NT$) deposits in banks. "Once the banks' available deposits decrease," Yang explained, "it would lead to a corresponding increase in the cost of financing and thereby increase the cost of borrowing for consumers." Yang further warned that …

VTB Factoring, a subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned bank, reported the first major deal with digital finance assets. As part of the deal, the bank subsidiary acquired a tokenized debt pool of the engineering company Metrowagonmash, issued via the fintech platform Lighthouse. On Wednesday, June 29, VTB reported the deal on its webpage, claiming it to be the first issuance and placement of digital financial assets secured by cash in the Russian Federation. In the announcement, the bank compares it with the issue of short-term commercial bonds. Anton Musatov, CEO at VTB Factoring, emphasized the new technology’s potential regarding the access …

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) do not pose any direct threat to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) but are still associated with risks in relation to stablecoins, one industry executive believes. According to Mikkel Morch, executive director at the digital asset hedge fund ARK36, a state-backed digital currency like the U.S. dollar doesn’t necessarily have to be a competitor to a private or a decentralized cryptocurrency. That’s because the use cases and value proposition of the decentralized digital assets “often go beyond the realm of simple transactions,” Morch said in a statement to Cointelegraph on Thursday. The exec referred to Federal …

Singapore’s financial regulator and the central bank have pledged to be “brutal and unrelentingly hard” on any “bad behavior” from the cryptocurrency industry. The comments come from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’s chief fintech officer Sopnendu Mohanty, explaining in an interview that “if somebody has done a bad thing, we are brutal and unrelentingly hard.” He also hit back at the rhetoric of certain crypto market participants who have criticized the regulator for not being friendly enough to crypto, and instead questioned the legitimacy of the market, saying: “We have been called out by many cryptocurrencies for not being …

Connecticut House of Representatives member Jim Himes has released a proposal aiming to start a dialogue on the United States potentially launching a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. In a white paper released on Wednesday, Himes urged Congress to begin exploring the rollout of a digital dollar issued by the Federal Reserve to prevent the government from falling behind in innovations in financial technology. According to the U.S. lawmaker, a CBDC “should not be thought of as replacing legacy payment systems and currencies but as an additional alternative for consumers and businesses.” The white paper laid out a proposal …

The 2.8-million nation of Qatar is going to join a growing range of countries experimenting with the central bank digital currency (CBDC) concept. The Qatar Central Bank (QCB) is currently “in the foundation stage” of issuing its digital currency. On Tuesday during the “Inflation Test” session at the Qatar Economic Forum, QCB Governor Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saoud Al Thani revealed that the bank is working to find technological solutions for its CBDC. Right now the project is in its early stage, Al Thani specified: “Many central banks are now considering to issue CBDC, and we are not an …

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub released a report Tuesday looking at four projects that examined wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) transfers across borders. The projects demonstrated the technical feasibility of the transfers, the BIS found, but practical and policy issues remain outstanding. The report considered the Jura project involving the central banks of Switzerland and France. Project Inthanon, LionRock2 and the ongoing mBridge project involving currencies in Asia and the Middle East, were also examined, as well as Project Dunbar, a joint effort of Australian, Malaysian, Singaporean and South African banking authorities. The projects looked at …

On Monday, the Bank of Israel released the results of a lab experiment that examined user privacy and the use of smart contracts in payments. This was the central bank’s first technological experiment with a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The first stage of the experiment modeled the sale of a car within a two-tier system with an intermediary payment service provider. The bank said that the service provider completed Know Your Customer (KYC)/Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks and provided the necessary blockchain addresses. A nonfungible token (NFT) was issued to show ownership of the car in the absence of a …

In a new annual economic report published by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the financial institution revealed that approximately 90% of central banks worldwide are investigating the feasibility of adopting central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. The BIS report highlighted the ability of current sovereign fiat money to provide (relative) price stability and public oversight while criticizing crypto's inability to perform "basic fundamental functions of money" and their opacity with regards to accountability to the general public. However, the report did highlight crypto's programmable nature as well as the borderless elements of decentralized finance (DeFi) as potential benefits that …