This week will be remembered as the one when the stablecoins showed an unexpected ability to depeg. Terra’s TerraUSD (UST) dropped to a shocking $0.29 following the general meltdown of both crypto and financial markets, but it was also the headliner of stablecoins’ niche, while Tether (USDT) lost the balance and slid to $0.96 for a short time. The United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen felt it necessary to assure everyone that, given the stablecoins’ market size, depegging didn’t present a threat to America’s financial stability. At the same time, she called on lawmakers to develop a “consistent federal framework” …

Fabio Panetta, an executive board member of the European Central Bank, or ECB, has said that a digital euro could come within four years, potentially designed with a person-to-person payment solution. In a Monday speech at the National College of Ireland, Panetta said the ECB could start the development and testing of solutions toward providing a digital euro for members of the European Union in 2023, a phase that could take up to three years. He added that making the digital currency legal tender and for use in P2P payments could help promote adoption. Panetta also commented on the recent …

Government-issued electronic currency seems to be an idea whose time has come. “More than half of the world’s central banks are now developing digital currencies or running concrete experiments on them,” reported the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, in early May — something that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. The BIS also found that nine out of ten central banks were exploring central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, in some form or other, according to its survey of 81 central banks conducted last autumn but just published. Many were taken aback by the progress. “It …

The European Central Bank (ECB) continues pushing its central bank digital currency (CBDC) project despite Europeans apparently not feeling too positive about a digital euro. The ECB released another working paper on the digital euro, providing an extensive technical analysis of a potential European CBDC and its position in the existing financial system. Issued on May 13, the working paper aims to study issues like financial intermediation, payment choices and privacy in the digital economy, providing a large number of related algebra-based conclusions. The study suggests that a “CBDC with anonymity” is preferable to traditional digital payments like bank deposits …

The European Central Bank (ECB) is planning to launch a prototype of the digital euro in 2023. In the next five years, Europe could have its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) up and running. However, there are still many questions surrounding the prospective digital currency. In what form could it be issued? Is the ECB too late for the CBDC party, especially compared to other central banks such as that of the People’s Republic of China? To address these and other questions, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch spoke with Jonas Gross, chairman of the Digital Euro Association (DEA) and member of …

The administration of the newly-elected President of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, wastes no time in his drive to maintain the country’s stature as a center for innovation, as South Korea hopes to roll out comprehensive crypto legislation in 2023 and institutionalize the sector by 2024. On Wednesday, South Korean newspaper Kukmin, citing a leaked governmental document, reported that the administration is looking to introduce the Digital Asset Basic Act (DABA) in the next year and to follow it up with more legislation by 2024. The bill is part of the 110 policy aims that the new president introduced earlier this …

The Central Bank of Chile has delayed its plans for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) saying the issuance of a digital Chilean peso requires a deeper analysis of the benefits and risks, promising a new report toward the end of the year. A report from the bank published on May 11 included a preliminary evaluation of a Chilean CBDC. It explored the country’s current payment system, along with the benefits, risks and principles of issuing a digital peso. The bank stated while the current payment system “works adequately” and has been able to “adapt well to recent challenges,” a …

Despite the fact that it still hasn't made a final decision on the launch of the “digital shekel,” Israel’s central bank reported that the public feedback on the project is mainly positive. According to Reuters, on Monday, The Bank of Israel summarized the results of the public consultation on its central bank digital currency (CBDC) plans. It has received 33 responses from different sectors, with half of them coming from abroad and 17 from the domestic fintech community. While specifying that the final decision on the project’s fate is yet to be made, it claimed: “All of the responses to …

The United States Federal Reserve Board released its semiannual Financial Stability Report on Monday. The report points to the volatility on commodities markets brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19 and “higher and more persistent than expected” inflation as sources of instability. Stablecoins and some types of money market funds were singled out in the report and noted to be prone to runs. According to the Fed, stablecoins have an aggregate value of $180 billion, with 80% of that amount represented by Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and Binance USD (BUSD). …

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is moving ahead with plans to upgrade the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be used on a wider range of goods and services. It is also maintaining harsh crypto restrictions that cripple the country’s fintech sector. The CBN branch controller Bariboloka Koyor spoke at a campaign aiming to “sensitize” businesses to the eNaira at a market in the country’s most populous city of Lagos on Monday, according to a report from Vanguard. Koyor stated: “Starting from next week, there is going to be an upgrade on the eNaira speed wallet app that …

The International Monetary Fund, or IMF, has turned its attention to the Bahamas’ central bank digital currency (CBDC), the Sand Dollar, and suggested additional regulatory oversight and education. Reporting on a consultation with the Caribbean nation on Monday, the IMF said its executive directors “recognized the potential of the Sand Dollar to foster financial inclusion” and recommended the Central Bank of The Bahamas “accelerate its education campaigns and continue strengthening internal capacity and oversight.” The consultation was somewhat of a departure from several of the IMF’s previous warnings to many countries against the adoption of digital assets — but many …

A survey conducted by the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, suggested that many central banks around the world are looking into rolling out a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. In a paper released on Friday, the BIS Monetary and Economic Department said 90% of 81 central banks surveyed from October to December 2021 were “engaged in some form of CBDC work,” with 26% running pilots on CBDCs and more than 60% doing experiments or proofs-of-concept related to a digital currency. According to the BIS, the increase in interest around CBDCs — up from roughly 83% in 2020 — …