A press release says Bitt, a Barbados-based fintech portfolio company of Medici Ventures, have signed a contract with the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) to conduct a pilot of the blockchain-issued Digital Eastern Caribbean Dollar (DXCD). Medici Ventures, the blockchain accelerator and subsidiary of Overstock, announced that they will be using blockchain technology to conduct a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot across Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) member countries.
The Governor of the ECCB, Timothy Antoine, emphasised that in contrast to previous CBDC research and experiments, the ECCB is going a step further, that this would be a “game-changer” for the way they do business.
“This is not an academic exercise,” he asserted. “Not only will the digital EC Dollar be the world’s first digital legal tender currency to be issued by a central bank on blockchain but this pilot is also a live CBDC deployment with a view to an eventual phased public rollout”.
The pilot begins this month and involves a securely minted digital version of the Eastern Caribbean (EC) dollar. The DXCD will be distributed and used by licensed financial institutions and non-banking financial institutions in the union. The countries belonging to the ECCU are Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Overstock CEO, Dr Patrick Byrne said: “We have found working with our forty Caribbean colleagues to be immensely rewarding and are delighted that the product of this collaboration is going to be implemented now among the island nations”.
A Practical Application Of Cutting Edge Technology To Solve Persistent Financial Problems
The Digital EC dollars will facilitate peer-to-peer transactions between merchants and consumers using smartphone apps. As well as reducing the amount of cash used within the ECCU, the pilot aims to promote greater financial sector stability and facilitate balanced growth in the Caribbean. There are plans to eventually roll out the DXCD to the public on a phased basis.
Bitt CEO, Rawdon Adams, said that they hope to enhance economic growth and the quality of life of ordinary people. He added: “Our mission is the practical application of cutting edge technology to solve persistent financial problems. It is about a successful currency union building on its impressive record of financial stability, development and integration to deliver a quantum improvement to the lives of all its 630,000 citizens”.
