Canada has reportedly paused its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project, which started in 2017.<\/p>\n
According to a September 18 CBC news story, following years of research into the potential for a digital version of the Canadian dollar, the local central bank has decided to move away from the initiative.<\/p>\n
The CBDC project was started in response to rapid digitalization and changing payment habits among Canadians. In 2022, the country\u2019s central bank also held a public consultation to gather opinions on the potential of virtual currency.<\/p>\n
However, a subsequent report<\/a> released by the institution in November 2023 highlighted that while Canadians were familiar with CBDCs, they \u201cstruggled\u201d to understand the rationale for a virtual version of the country\u2019s fiat currency.<\/p>\n In a later online survey<\/a>, nearly 87% of participants said they would never use a digital Canadian dollar. A further 92% stated that under no circumstances would they ever prefer CBDCs over existing means of payment.<\/p>\n Cybersecurity threats and privacy issues were also raised. 87% voiced concerns over the Bank of Canada\u2019s ability to protect digital currency users against cyber attacks.<\/p>\n The fiscal regulator has always insisted that the digital Canadian dollar would not replace paper notes, but it was meant to simplify online purchases and the transfer of funds.<\/p>\n Now, it seems even less committed to the idea, reportedly pivoting its attention to policy research and analysis to find ways to adapt to the changing local and global payments landscape.<\/p>\n The reported shift in priorities comes even as the world is seeing increased interest<\/a> in CBDCs. Three countries\u2014the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Nigeria<\/a>\u2014have fully launched such products and are now working to expand their use.<\/p>\n Additionally, data from the Atlantic Council\u2019s CBDC tracker<\/a> shows that as of September 2024, 134 countries and currency unions\u2014representing 98% of global GDP\u2014are exploring central bank-issued digital currencies.<\/p>\n Industry watchers say that such projects have increased as a result of geopolitical events like Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. There are now 13 cross-border initiatives in progress, including Project mBridge, which links banks in China, Thailand, and other nations.<\/p>\n China\u2019s digital yuan pilot remains the largest<\/a> globally, with transactions reportedly totaling 7 trillion yuan (approximately $986 billion) as of June 2024. That number is nearly quadruple last year\u2019s total.<\/p>\n The post Bank of Canada Halts Digital Dollar Project Amid Global Surge in CBDC Development<\/a> appeared first on CryptoPotato<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Canada has reportedly paused its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project, which started in 2017. According to a September 18 CBC news story, following years of research into the potential for a digital version of the Canadian dollar, the local central bank has decided to move away from the initiative. Bank of Canada Rethinks Digital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Global CBDC Momentum Continues to Grow<\/h2>\n