US Lawmakers Introduce ‘ECASH’ Bill in New Push to Create a Digital Dollar
A group of U.S. lawmakers introduced the “Electronic Currency And Secure Hardware (ECASH) Act” to direct the Treasury Secretary to develop and issue an electronic version of the U.S. dollar, with an eye to preserving privacy and anonymity in transactions. The electronic dollar would be a bearer instrument that would be held on phones or cards, and be functionally identical to physical bank notes. [Read more]
Bank of Japan enters second phase of CBDC experiments
The Bank of Japan (BoJ) completed the first phase of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) proof of concept (PoC) workplan. The initial stage that started in April 2021 explored issuance, distribution and redemption. The next phase will implement additional functions and test their feasibility. Based on the PoC, if the Bank judges it necessary to step things up further, it will also consider a pilot program that involves payment service providers and end users. [Read more]
ASX’s post-trade blockchain project faces another delay
The go-live data for the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) distributed ledger technology (DLT) based securities settlement platform will be delayed again. This marks the latest in a long line of setbacks to the timeline of the project which has been planned since 2016 but wrought with delays. In September 2021 it was said to be on-track for go-live in April 2023, but now, due to a delay to the next software release for the project, there will likely be a knock-on effect to the go-live date. [Read more]
