Banco Central do Brasil reveals the digital real’s name and logo
Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) announced that “DREX” will be the official name of the digital real central bank digital currency (CBDC). The D stands for digital, R for real, E for electronic, and X for modernity and connection. The BCB also released the new visual branding for DREX. On the CBDC logo, two arrows, inside the capital D, picture the evolution of the real to its digital version, while the transition from blue to light green colors stands for the “transaction completed” message. [Read more at the BCB]
PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin is triggering apprehension
PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin, announced on August 7, 2023, is fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. treasuries and similar cash equivalents, and can be redeemed 1:1 for U.S. dollars, which all sounds good. However, according to Sasha Hodder, the PTUSD terms of service there will be full know-your-customer (KYC) intrusion, and PayPal can reverse any transaction, so it would have all of the *potential* censorship capabilities of a CBDC. And according to Jamiel Sheikh’s analysis of the underlying code, PayPal can freeze and unfreeze accounts, and wipe a frozen account and burn its tokens. [Read more at Bitcoinist and Jamiel’s code analysis on LinkedIn]
*For those interested in intra-day updates, check out my searchable Diigo Fintech developments database, which is also a good place to go to query for past developments: https://www.diigo.com/user/kiffmeister/ART.
Kiffmeister’s central bank digital currency monthly monitor
Just a reminder that I produce a monthly digest of central bank digital currency (CBDC) developments exclusively for the official sector. So (only) if you work at a central bank, ministry of finance or international financial institution (e.g., the BIS, IMF, OECD, World Bank) and who would like to receive it by email on the first business day of every month, please DM me on LinkedIn or email me at chronicles@kiffmeister.com.
The Sovereign Official Digital Association (SODA) is a technology-agnostic firm offering advisory services at the intersection of central banking, digital finance and the web3 industry, aiming to make public digital money a reality. SODA believes institutions in the existing financial ecosystem should have access to the tools and resources they need to move from discussion to action. SODA offers ‘real life’ use cases to help test digital money and drive adoption as central banks and other public institutions explore the future of a more financially inclusive world powered by interoperable blockchain-based networks. SODA would love you to join us on this journey – please get in touch (chris@sodapublicmoney.org).
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