I’ve updated my tabulation of wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) explorers, adding a Banque de France tokenized securities settlement project announced in December. However, the count remains at 17 central banks that have recently piloted, experimented with and/or researched wholesale CBDC. (I don’t separately count national central banks that are members of currency unions.) [Download the table here]
Silvergate sold assets at loss and cut staff to cover $8.1B in withdrawals
US-based crypto-focused Silvergate Bank, has cut 40% of its total staff or about 200 employees and written off the $196 million related to its acquisition of the technology and assets of Diem Association from Meta, parking its plans to launch a blockchain-based payment platform. The bank was hit with outflows of around $8.1 billion in digital asset deposits during the fourth quarter’s FTX debacle, which required the sale of $5.2 billion of debt securities at a loss of $718 million. However, Silvergate’s Exchange Network Platform continued to operate with an average daily trade volume of $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, rising from $1.2 billion in the previous quarter. [Read more at Silvergate]
Saudi Central Bank Launches Open Banking Lab
The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) launched its Open Banking Lab to provide banks and fintechs with a technical testing environment to enable them to develop, test, and certify their open banking services to ensure compatibility with the Open Banking Framework. The Open Banking Framework includes a comprehensive set of legislation, regulatory guidelines and technical standards based on international best practices to enable banks and fintechs to provide open banking services in the Kingdom. [Read more at SAMA]
2nd Edition of DC³ Conference – From Cryptocurrencies to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will hold (virtually) the second edition of its DC3 Conference – From Cryptocurrencies to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) from January 24 to 27 2023. On January 27 I will be moderating two panels on offline central bank digital currency (CBDC). Also, on January 24, Jacques Francouer and I will be providing an update to our ITU Digital Currency Global Initiative digital currency ontology work. [For more event detail go to the ITU DC3 conference site]

Kiffmeister’s global 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 for any of you out there who work for a central bank, ministry of finance or international financial institution 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.
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