The Bahamas plan to launch its own cryptocurrency in October
The country would be the first to have a government-backed CBDC nationwide
The Bahamas “Sand Dollars Project” pilot was tested in 2019 and rated a “success”. The country’s central bank now plans to launch its own CBDC for next October.
If all goes well, The Bahamas would manage to position itself as the first country with a national cryptocurrency, “valid for the entire archipelago.” This has been pointed out by the deputy director of eSolutions of the Central Bank of The Bahamas, Chaozhen Chen, who underlined the objective of the digital currency: “to promote greater financial inclusion among remote islands within the archipelago nation.”
He indicated that a large percentage of the population currently does not have access to the digital payment system or traditional banking. Hence the effort to provide an alternative to citizens through the mobile phone, to which about 90% of the population does have access.
On Snad Dollars Chen clarified that the CBDC “will be subject to the same regulations as the Bahamian dollar, with protections against money laundering and KYC (Know Your Customer) around the creation of accounts to use virtual currency.”
The country’s Central Bank indicated that new digital dollars will be issued as demand increases and the digital asset will be issued exclusively together with the withdrawal of local dollars in order to reduce as much as possible the impact on the money supply.
M.Pino
Source: cointelegraph
