The Federal Government of Canada recently announced it was officially launching a consultation on cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and CBDCs
This is a step for...
The new administration under Kenya’s fifth president, William Samoei Ruto, has taken over in the midst of a global digital revolution. Globally, technologies such as the metaverse and crypto are slowly but steadily taking root.
Kenya has not been left behind in the growth and development of technology. East Africa’s most prosperous economy stands tall within the fourth industrial revolution and web3. Kenya stands tall as a global leader in P2P cryptocurrency transactions in matters of the crypto ecosystem.
However, a lot needs to be done, and the new administration has enough space to execute its plan regarding advancing the Kenyan digital space and the place of blockchain, web3, and crypto.
Since transactions are worldwide, crypto must have international coordination and holistic regulation. This way, crypto will live up to its potential on the African continent and beyond. Although significant progress exists in this area, the current fragmented approach to crypto regulation throughout the globe is not optimal.
During market turmoil, experts recommend the application of caution when it comes to crypto investing. Utilizing crypto as the only method for protecting assets from inflation would be imprudent. With time, blockchain technologies will improve, resulting in increased stability and the use of crypto as a hedge against inflation. The equipment is already in place.
Decentralized exchanges (DEXs), borrowing and lending platforms, and yield farms are all protocols in the DeFi area. Users may participate in the DeFi ecosystem more efficiently since there are no centralized middlemen. However, there are also more significant dangers. These dangers include protocol codebase flaws, hacker attempts, and malicious protocols. Combined with the extreme volatility of the crypto market in general, these dangers may make it more difficult for DeFi to gain widespread acceptance among typical consumers. On the other hand, workarounds and improvements in the blockchain domain may solve these problems.
How would the world work with multiple CBDCs? One possible answer has been provided by the Bank for International Settlements in collaboration with four central banks that are working on CBDCs. It's code-named Project Dunbar and looks at cross-border CBDC transfers' feasibility.
One of the pain points with cryptocurrencies is how they can be used for illicit dealings. Not unique but a real challenge, the idea of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is to remedy this by having a digital currency issued and supervised by a central bank. While this flies in the face of one of the more popular cryptocurrency features, decentralisation, it's something many agree is needed moving forward.
How many African countries are looking at central bank digital currencies, and how far are they?
Only Nigeria has an active CBDC, South Africa and Ghana have a CBDC in the pilot phase while Mauritius and the Central African Republic have CBDCs coming soon
Individual African countries cannot devise a worldwide plan to foresee the growth of private transnational digital currencies amidst crypto regulation needs because of their small economies.
