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Vitalik Buterin says that currency digitization is inevitable and believes decentralized privacy currency would be more appealing to people than state-controlled digital currencies.

It was two years ago since the Republic of the Marshall Islands first announced its initiative to create a sovereign digital currency dubbed the Marshallese Sovereign or SOV. The country’s national digital currency initiative is set to combat many issues the country is struggling with, including the high cost of remittances as well as pursuing the “manifesting national liberty” and to mitigate its reliance on the U.S. dollar.

Morning closing keynote speech by Mr Denis Beau, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of France, at the 8th Annual Meetings of France Payments Forum, Paris, 3 March 2020.

World’s First National Digital Currency to Be Built on Algorand

After revealing its planned digital currency back in 2018, the Marshall Islands chose blockchain firm Algorand as technology partner for the project.

None of the 17 ongoing global CBDC projects goes beyond the central bank’s jurisdiction, according to BIS research.

If central banks are to issue digital currency, they must think hard about the design, BoE deputy says

Challenge is to design a currency that balances credibility and convenience, says Hyun Song Shin

The Bank of England’s deputy governor has warned that stablecoin adoption could have profound implications for the money creation of national economies.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has released its newest quarterly report on the changes in the payment industry, including the market impact of the recent coronavirus outbreak. Some of

The BIS Quarterly Review takes an in-depth look at the fast-changing world of payments, explaining the strengths and weaknesses of existing systems, describing the rapid pace of technological change and its impact, and assessing new solutions.

Technology is transforming payment systems. The pace of change and potential for disruption to incumbent service providers have propelled payment systems to the top of policymakers' agenda. The BIS and central banks have a leading role in shaping the response.

This Quarterly Review takes an in-depth look at the fast-changing world of payments. The speed of changes and the potential for disruption have propelled payment systems to the top of policymakers' agendas. It also discusses the market impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

Among the many central banks that are exploring the possibility of a retail CBDC (Boar et al (2020)), several have published research or statements on the related motivations, architectures, risks and benefits. The table below shows 17 selected projects or reports published before 19 February 2020. It does not cover wholesale CBDCs or cross-border payment projects that do not involve a CBDC. When it comes to the four main design choices (Graph 1 in the main text), many central banks are still considering multiple options, and it is not always possible to classify them. Regarding their architecture (Graph 2 in the main text), five projects focus on a direct CBDC, two on an indirect CBDC, and 10 investigate several designs or do not specify the architecture.

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) promise to provide cash-like safety and convenience for peer-to-peer payments. To do so, they must be resilient and accessible. They should also safeguard the user's privacy, while allowing for effective law enforcement. Different technical designs satisfy these attributes to varying degrees, depending on whether they feature intermediaries, a conventional or distributed infrastructure, account- or token-based access, and retail interlinkages across borders. We set out the underlying trade-offs and the related hierarchy of design choices.1