America’s Oldest Central Bank, Bitcoin Startup Partner to Explore Digital Currency
The Central Bank of Curacao and Sint Maarten (CBCS) has announced a partnership with blockchain technology firm Bitt aimed at exploring the issuance of a digital currency for Curacao and Sint Maarten island nations.Per the chief executive of Bitt, Rawdon Adams, a digital currency will be especially relevant to the two countries, which are both constituent countries of the Netherlands and which share the same monetary union. This is because the risks and costs incurred by the CBCS in printing and distributing physical cash across the monetary union will be greatly reduced. Additionally, it will be convenient for citizens and residents of the region. “A central bank issued digital currency, which can be used on mobile wallets, facilitates secure and frictionless financial transactions and payments, using a mobile phone/tablet, within each jurisdiction and across jurisdictions in the monetary union,” said Adams in a statement. “This solution is particularly powerful in the case of cross-border transactions, which can take days even within a monetary union, and the cost of which is only increasing.”
