Crypto has gained a lot of fame across the globe in recent times. Countries around the world, whether small or large, are endeavoring to adopt crypto and blockchain technologies into the economy to get spread digitalization worldwide.
Many central banks are pursuing the launch of their distinctive central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Contrarily, the others are looking to develop stablecoins.
Ripple to Make Palau’s National Stablecoin
Palau, the Pacific island-based country with a population of nearly 18,000, is perhaps not the earliest among the jurisdictions trying to get technologically advanced. Nonetheless, the small nation is enthusiastically campaigning to make a formal adoption of crypto assets.
As per Surangel S. Whips Jr. (the president of Palau), the information technology-related engineers of the country have been aggressively working on tech possibilities.
He mentioned that the country intends to develop a stablecoin to operate nationwide. The respective initiative will be taken in collaboration with Ripple Labs (a blockchain firm). The president is of the view that the stablecoin, after being implemented in Palau, will enhance the lifestyle of the people living in Palau along with offering diversification for the economy.
At present, the extreme health crisis caused by COVID-19 has severely damaged the economy dependent on tourism. During the pandemic, a 50% decrease has taken place in the gross domestic product (GDP) of the archipelago. The official currency operating in Palau is the United States dollar however the country has not established a central bank.
In this way, the stablecoin to be developed for Palau will be backed by the USD. Whipps disclosed that the proposal for the stablecoin project is a move toward the country’s separate central bank digital currency (CBDC). The Palau president additionally provided remarks on the recent visit of Changpeng Zhao (the CEO of the crypto exchange named Binance) to the country.
He added that the visit consisted of their discussions regarding Palau as well as methods by which it can utilize the payment infrastructure of the crypto exchange.
According to him, they conversed over the provision of digital payment facilities to the people residing in the country as a result of embracing crypto assets. Whipps reportedly stated that the crypto sector counts as an exclusive world to be explored by the island nation.
The reports point out that the president highlighted one benefit of Palau is that the country is small and expectedly can mobilize the government. Along with this, he added, it can additionally become more adaptive to the requirements needed to make pace with the rapidly-changing environment.
As per a survey that was conducted by the Graduate School USA, the GDP of Palau has witnessed a slump of up to 8.7% back in 2020.
The most probable reason behind this decline was related to the downfall of the country’s tourism because of the pandemic. The president brought to the front that at the start of 2021, an upsurge was witnessed in government citizens’ purchase of products by utilizing their smartphones on an instant basis.
Palau President Converses with Vitalik Buterin to Issue Virtual IDs for Developers
In the conventional system of banks, citizens usually require waiting for transactions to be completed but digital methods have eliminated that process. In the meantime, Whipps additionally revealed that a virtual meeting took place between him and Vitalik Buterin (the co-founder of Ethereum).
They reportedly talked about releasing an ecosystem of virtual R&S IDs for the developer community and the applicability thereof.
