Digital financial services and more importantly, mobile money, have become an important financial innovation to advance financial inclusion in developing and emerging economies. While digital financial services have improved the lives of many Kenyans, to the growing betting segment of the Kenyan...

Bitcoin is digital energy. This is part metaphor, part description. It is part explanation, part prophecy. It is part engineering, part finance. The digital energy that is Bitcoin is not mechanical, chemical, or electrical. It is the same “stuff” that saves you time when you draw on a store...

This paper takes an overview of the concepts and features of central bank money and private sector money and focuses on the actual performance of these types of money in selected advanced and emerging economies. In addition, digital coins (crypto assets), such as bitcoin, are newly emerged...

Little over a decade has passed since Blockchain gave birth to its prodigy Bitcoin, but Bitcoin despite all the hype (which was referred to as “big bang” by many) failed to become a simple (stable) global crypto-currency for everyday life to enable users worldwide to purchase...

This study reviews the concepts and features of both central bank and private sector money and focuses on them in selected advanced and emerging economies. As a newly emerged form of private sector money, digital coins (cryptoassets) such as bitcoin have garnered much attention because their...

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are receiving more attention than ever before. Yet the motivations for issuance vary across countries, as do the policy approaches and technical designs. We investigate the economic and institutional drivers of CBDC development and take stock of design...

In July 2021 the Eurosystem decided to launch the investigation phase of the digital euro project, which aims to provide euro area citizens with access to central bank money in an increasingly digitalised world. While a digital euro could offer a wide range of benefits, it could prompt changes...

This article provides a timely update on central bank digital currencies and the digital euro in the wake of the new executive orders, signed by US President Donald Trump, which establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a US Digital Asset Stockpile on the one hand, and ban central bank digital...

The world is rapidly moving onto a cashless economy. But our present economic system is highly centralised. It has a high transaction cost and is vulnerable to single-point failures (like hacking of the centralised servers). Moreover, a centralised digital economic system cannot ensure mixed...