The Central Bank of the Bahamas is preparing a national push for its digital currency this summer to get more Bahamians signing up for the Sand Dollar. In another move toward the adoption of the Bahamas’ central bank digital currency, the CBOB is now focused on connecting mobile Sand Dollar wallets with commercial banking systems, CBOB Governor John Rolle announced. According to a Wednesday report by the Nassau Guardian, Rolle said that the Bahamian government has initiated a number of measures to prepare itself and the Sand Dollar ecosystem. “There is a focus now on enrolling individuals on those various …

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) will co-exist “for a while” with more restrictive digital currencies like China’s digital yuan, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a Bloomberg interview on Monday. According to Zhao, some of the key features of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) — freedom of use and limited supply — won’t be offered by central bank digital currencies. “At the end of the day, those are core properties that users care about,” he stated. Zhao said that the differences between the two types of digital assets could make central bank-issued currencies unattractive to people in the crypto …

It turns out the 100-million euro digital bond issued by the European Investment Bank earlier this week was actually a trial of a European central bank digital currency. A Thursday announcement from France’s central bank, Banque de France, revealed the digital bond was settled using a CBDC on a blockchain. The two year-bond was issued on the Ethereum public blockchain on Tuesday and settled the following day, with a maturity date of April 28, 2023. The sale was led by Goldman Sachs, Santander and Societe Generale. “From a technological standpoint, the experiment required the development and deployment of smart contracts …

New research from one of the top 10 major banks in Russia, Otkritie Bank, has found that 14% of Russians think crypto will replace fiat in 10 years. According to Russian publication Nord News, the survey was conducted between April 12 and April 16, with a sample base of 1,000 Russians aged between 18 and 65 who live in cities with a population of over 100,000. The results varied among regions, with respondents from the Northwest having the least faith in crypto — just 8% believe crypto will oust fiat in a decade, while 34% adamantly refuse to believe that …

Major Chinese technology and commerce firms are starting to open up regarding their involvement in developing the digital yuan. Ant Group and Tencent Holdings revealed the extent of their collaboration with the People’s Bank of China in developing the digital yuan at the Digital China Summit, an annual trade fair in the city of Fuzhou in southeastern Fujian province. According to the South China Morning Post, Ant Group started working with the PBoC on the digital yuan in 2017, years before China officially debuted digital currency pilots in 2020. In June 2019, China’s digital currency institute reportedly used Ant’s mobile …

The Norwegian central bank, Norges Bank, is set to test various technical solutions for a central bank digital currency following years of research. Norges Bank officially announced Friday that it will be conducting CBDC tests over the next two years upon recommendations from an internal working group. “The working group is of the opinion that the motivation for research into CBDCs has been strengthened. Many central banks are in the process of carrying out similar research, and several are already under way with technical testing,” the central bank stated. According to the announcement, Norges Bank has been involved in CBDC …

China’s central bank is looking to enable foreign athletes and visitors to use the country’s digital currency during the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, according to a top central bank official. Li Bo, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, said that the upcoming Winter Olympics could potentially become the first test of China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, by foreign users. “For the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics, we were trying to make e-CNY available not only to domestic users, but also to international athletes and like visitors,” Li said Sunday at a CNBC panel at the Boao …

The European Central Bank will put itself in jeopardy if it waits around o a digital euro for too long, according to an executive at major cryptocurrency firm ConsenSys. ConsenSys South Africa lead Monica Singer joined the European Blockchain Convention to discuss the role of the private sector in shaping global central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. She spoke of CBDC-powered benefits and opportunities in a Monday panel with BNP Paribas CIB digital transformation leader Dean Demellweek and Philipp Sandner, a professor at the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center. Singer — who served more than 18 years as CEO of South …

Kinesis, a gold-backed monetary system based in the Cayman Islands, has launched a Sharia-compliant version of its product in Indonesia, setting the stage for wider acceptance of its solution in the world’s largest Muslim-population country. The product, PosGO Syariah, is described as the first mobile ecosystem business in Indonesia to be compliant with Islamic law. Delivered as a mobile application, PosGO is a digitized physical gold trading platform that also allows users to conduct real-time, peer-to-peer transfers of gold and fiat currency. The platform also offers a payment gateway and a “Gold Mecca” community savings program for the Hajj, the …

Macau is pushing forward with preparations fo the roll out China’s digital yuan, which could help crack down on tax evasion in its opaque gambling industry. On Tuesday, Ho lat Seng, chief executive of the Chinese island territory, told local lawmakers the government is planning to amend legislation that would allow the regulated issuance of China’s digital yuan to facilitate trials of the digital currency: “We will keep communication with the People’s Bank of China and start a feasibility study around launching the Digital RMB in Macau. Therefore, we need to add provisions in relevant law to allow for the …

A decentralized platform allows investors to gain access to well-balanced baskets of digital assets that serve as an effective store of value. Digital Reserve offers several portfolios — the construction of which are based on votes from community members. The project says no single entity or person is in control, as users interact directly with smart contracts. The first portfolio is geared toward capital appreciation. While 40% is allocated to Wrapped Bitcoin, 40% is also dedicated to PAX Gold, an asset-backed token that is pegged to a troy ounce of the precious metal. The remaining 20% is allocated to Wrapped …

The European Central Bank has published the results of a public consultation on a potential digital euro as the institution inches closer to deciding whether to formally study such an initiative. According to a Wednesday announcement, the ECB received more than 8,200 responses to its public digital euro consultation — a personal record for the bank regarding participation in a public consultation. Of the total responses, 47% came from Germany, with a significant amount also coming from Italy and France, accounting for 15% and 11% of total responses, respectively. The majority of respondents said that privacy was the most desired …