Jamaica – Despite cryptocurrency crackdown in some countries, several countries are beginning to change their fortunes by rolling out digital currency as the county’s legal tender.
Weeks back it was El Salvador who despite risk assessment by various Central Banks of the world against all odds rolled out crypto as its legal currency.
Recent developments had reveal that a number of countries reasoned in this direction but have been waiting for who would set the pace before the ball gets rolling.
In the light of this, Jamaica is set to roll out digital currency in the coming weeks.
The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) recently announced an on-going collaboration with financial institutions in the Caribbean country to roll out the first and entrance phase of digital currency.
The Bank of Jamaica Governor Richard Byles revealed this during a rotary club event this month (July).
The governor revealed that the Bank of Jamaica is currently working to fine tune the technical aspect of this development within a sandbox environment.
Recently, BOJ opted for Irish technology an eCurruency firm known as Mint as the tech enabler for its national digital currency project in March, 2021.
The governor’s statement
“As we work through the technical minting of the currency, we have to test it rigorously as a pilot that we’ll do in August.
“In September to December we’ll be recruiting more of the banks to come on board and then we’ll gradually expand the pilot out into a full-fledged launch of the CBDC.
He as well provided further details on the planned CBDC, stating that financial institutions will be adopted as intermediary entities between the BOJ and the consumers targeting the retail and corporate chains of the business.
Now with the CBDC crafted to complement Jamaica’s banknotes, financial institutions stand a pole position to issue the digital currency to individual and business account holders at a significant rate of one CBDC coin to one Jamaican dollar, this indeed will make a stable economy for the people of Jamaica.
The governor remarks that BOJ will use the CBDC as a platform to provide and deepen financial inclusion in the country. Given this, BOJ calls on telecom firms in the country and their networks of retail payment merchants to embrace the upcoming trends.
In the same light, Paraguay begins legislation for bitcoin adoption
Recall that El Salvador commenced accepting bitcoin as the country’s legal tender in June, Paraguay is towing the same step to introduce a new cryptocurrency focused legislation.
Paraguayan law makers Senator Fernando Silver Facetti and Carlitos Rejala are planning to introduce a bitcoin bill to Congress today being Wednesday 14, 2021 with an urgency to formulating a digital asset strategy for the South American country.
Rejala in his tweet says,
“I am here to unite the Paraguay,” adding that he and his fellow law maker are planning a mega surprise for his country and the world.”
Rejala told his twitter followers that law makers in Paraguay want to follow the El Salvador’s lead in making bitcoin a legal tender in the country.
Based on this statement, the upcoming bill will introduce measures to make Paraguay a leading front for foreign cryptocurrency investors, business and probably bitcoin mining activities will take place in the country.
What this means for the world
Digital currency is simply taking shape and gaining more acceptability in the world of finance, as predicted earlier, it’s beginning to gain relevance given its position to reposition and spur economic prosperity amongst nations.
Expect to see more countries join this league, but the big question is, will Nigeria lift her ban on cryptocurrency and possibly adopt it as a legal tender in the future? That’s left to be seen.
