Chris Giancarlo’s Digital Dollar Project Proposes US CBDC Pilots

The former CFTC chairman weighs in on what a U.S. CBDC might look like, as well as the benefits it could bring to American citizens. One of the few high-profile public officials to have served under both the Obama and Trump administrations, Chris Giancarlo is a former Wall Street executive-turn-regulator who is widely-respected by nearly all parties on Capitol Hill. As the former Chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, however, his latest venture, the Digital Dollar Foundation, might well test his soft touch with politicians.The former regulator is now leading the....

The first phase of Japan's CBDC pilots will be completed by March 2022, the central bank states. The Japanese central bank has launched a proof of concept for its central bank digital currency, or CBDC, according to an official announcement on Monday.Following initial preparations to test the technical feasibility of core CBDC functions and features in early 2021, the Bank of Japan is beginning CBDC testing in its first phase today. During this phase, the bank plans to develop a test environment for the CBDC system and conduct experiments on basic functions related to payment, issuance,....

CBDCs will never offer the same freedom of use as cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, according to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) will co-exist “for a while” with more restrictive digital currencies like China’s digital yuan, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a Bloomberg interview on Monday.According to Zhao, some of the key features of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) — freedom of use and limited supply — won’t be offered by central bank digital currencies. “At the end of the day, those are core properties that users care about,” he....

The non-profit organization promoting the creation of the digital dollar, the Digital Dollar Project, has announced the launch of a sandbox program to kickstart the probe of the technical implementations of the envisaged digital currency. The fintech firm Ripple is among the four participants that are expected to help the Digital Dollar Project “explore technical and business implementation questions.” Inaugural Cohort to Focus on Cross-Border Payments The Digital Dollar Project (DDP), a nonprofit organization spearheading discussions around the mooted digital....

Five pilot programs will gather data on a digital dollar in the United States over the next 12 months. Fortune 500 company Accenture has teamed up with Digital Dollar Foundation to conduct Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC, trials in the United States.Announced on Monday, May 3, the newly formed Digital Dollar Project will carry out five CBDC pilot programs over the next 12 months. The project’s objective is to generate data to inform U.S. policymakers on how to develop a domestic digital currency.The Digital Dollar Project will launch three pilot programs in the next two months,....