Thailand is considering issuing its own cryptocurrency
The director of the Bank of Thailand (BoT) declared on June 5 that the country's main financial institution is considering issuing its own cryptocurrency.
The news was released in a speech that talked about the country's economic development, which was held at Nomura Investment Forum Asia (NIFA) in Singapore. Veerathai Santiprabhob, governor of the BoT, spoke of a project in which the central bank and other local financial entities are partnering to develop a "new form of a digital currency issued by the central bank (CBDC)".
According to the institution, the adoption of its own cryptocurrency by the banking system would reduce the transaction and validation time, as well as its costs since it leads to a lesser intermediation process in relation to the systems used today.
According to CoinTelegraph, Santiprabhob said that the bank is not prioritizing the adoption of CBDC, but rather focuses on exploring the potential of the technology that supports it (blockchain).
The governor of the bank stressed that the institution is "facilitator of innovation", but at the same time a "regulator to safeguard financial stability":
"Like other central banks, our goal is not to incorporate CBDC immediately, but rather to explore its potential and the implications for administrative operations."
In addition to considering the issue of CBDC, Santiprabhob also spoke about the benefits of the financial system adopted by the blockchain technology, claiming that banks are "working closely with the financial industry" to bring the technology to "various banking applications". One of the advantages of blockchain is the facility to be coupled to fintech, distributed accounting is its most advantageous uses.
CoinTelegrpah notes that "the central bank of Thailand is the last to consider the adoption of a CDBC!". And last month, Norges Bank of Norway issued a working document in which it considered developing its own digital currency as a means to complement cash and "guarantee confidence in money and the monetary system."
Sweden is also part of the countries with the intention of issuing their own crypto, but until now the only country that dared to do so was Venezuela with digital currency backed by oil.
Following this same line, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin said in his annual session of questions and answers live, that neither Russia nor "any other country" can have their own cryptocurrency "by definition", given the nature without borders and decentralized of digital assets, so the idea of a cryptorub is discarded for now.
Source: CoinTelegraph