A joint project between the Central Bank of Canada and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will be researching the possibility of an entirely digital Canadian dollar, it was announced yesterday.
The digital dollar would be a state-issued cryptocurrency, or “central bank digital currency” (CBDC). (For more detail on CBDCs and how they work, you can read our previous article here.)
It’s not just Canada – countries from all around the world appear to be accelerating the research and implementation of CBDCs as we enter the second quarter of 2022.
In our New Years post, OffG hypothesized that the introduction of central bank digital currencies would be a major news thread of 2022, and that prediction looks to be coming true before winter has even turned into spring.
CBDC pilot schemes were already active in the Bahamas and Nigeria before the end of 2021, and Jamaica is rolling out their own later this year after a pilot scheme last year.
Dozens ...