While giants like China have been on the run to launch their CBDC (central bank digital currency) the Islands of Bahamas gained that race and launched the world first currency backed by blockchain, the Sand Dollar, and become the world's pioneer in providing the population of the country the first digital currency to be used nationwide.
Accordingly with cointelegraph, based in the Facebook page of the Sand Dollar project, the archipelago have available to their 393,000 residents the first digital state backed currency launched in the world and all merchants in the country will accept the coin as long have been provided the e-wallets by the Central Bank of the Bahamas.
The Sand Dollar will have transactions made by mobile phone, the smart ones of course, and the population of the country (90%) use this devices accordingly to a survey conducted by World Bank in 2017, and the good news is that fees for transfers are very low.
The Sand Dollar is pegged to the Bahamian Dollar which also is pegged to the United States Dollar and become the world first Central Bank Electronic payment, recently the Central Bank of Bahamas conducted a pilot test in some Islands of the country with a total population of 25,000 habitants and more than $45,000 where distributed to see how it can go, fortunately the test was a success and now they roll out the Sand Dollar to all their territory to make it available to all residents. The digital currency can also be used in International transactions (but still on project, and soon the Central Bank of Bahamas with partners can tell how it gonna work) for now only can be used nationwide.
Other countries like China, who is implementing a digital yuan still on pilot phase of their coin, with a roughly $1,5 giveaway to residents of Shenzhen, and China isn't the only one testing their national currency, also the Cambodia is planning to roll out a Central Bank Electronic payment which is on pilot since 2019.
This is a thought test to the Central Bank entities all over the world, they can see the advantage of using a Blockchain technology to issue their national currency, of course this isn't a Crypto but just the necessity to use it to provide a better, fast and cheap way to issue digital money to their population it's a win to all crypto world, as the government are now seeing how powerful the tech behind it is powerful.
Bahamas is a small nation with a population of few habitants, but they made their debut in the blockchain world and soon biggest economies like China with more than a Billion people will soon exchange or substitute their paper money by a digital state backed currency issued by PBoC (People Bank of China) with advanced tests in big cities such as Shenzhen, where they are given away a huge sum of money to promote the digital yuan, and after successful test oblivious it will be official launched and the paper money will start becoming obsolete in the lands of Mao Tse Tung.
The world is changing and the Financial sector also forced to change to be part of it, this backed state digital currency powered by Blockchain aren't cryptocurrencies but use the same technology to issue them, government of course won't say crypto are legal or illegal but just using the tech behind it are proven that slowly are embracing it, and we enthusiasts just say thank you for that!
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Nice