The city of Freeport located on Grand Bahama, seriously intends to become “the Silicon valley of the Caribbean”, and now holds a conference dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. And the Central Bank of the Bahamas, meanwhile, is going to start pilot project of the digital currency.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Kevin Peter Ternes (Kevin Peter Turnques) expressed the hope that the Great Bahama will become the center of digital technology. And this should help create a modern and fully digital payment service.
It is worth noting that currently the Bahamas archipelago in the course of two currency — Bahamian dollar and the US dollar. However, as the local dollar has an exchange rate of 1:1 to USD, in fact the state does not have its own currency.
The authorities hope that the creation of a digital currency issued by the Central Bank (CBDC), may resolve this and some other pressing for the state problems. So, due to the nature of the landscape (the state is composed of many sparsely populated Islands) a significant portion of Bahamians unbanked. Therefore, to translate money they need to go on the sea with some cash in the nearest Bank.
The second important problem of the Bahamas — corruption. According to Ternes, blockchain will help in both cases.
“Using this technology and the single point of contact, we can reduce the influence of the human factor that contributes to corruption. Thus, when applying for government services, electronic data interchange will help to eliminate the possibility of bribery”, — he said
In addition to the Bahamas, the private digital currency and other interested countries, including Ecuador, China, Senegal and Singapore.
However, many members of the crypto community do not agree with the use of the term cryptocurrency in respect of CBDC as a digital currency, controlled by Central Bank, does not have the basic characteristics such coins as bitcoin, which have been developed as alternatives to state money.
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