Stellar to Help Ukraine With CBDC Development
- By signing the memorandum of understanding, Stellar has agreed to assist Ukraine’s government in creating their own CBDC.
- The organization will also help the country in creating and implementing regulations for stablecoins in the country.
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The Stellar Development Foundation will be assisting the Ukrainian government in creating a “virtual assets ecosystem and national digital currency”, the foundation said in a press release on 4 January.
According to the announcement, a Memorandum of Understanding has already been signed between the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Stellar, which should “enhance Ukraine’s status as an innovative digital country”. As per the memorandum, the partnership will focus on the development of crypto markets in Ukraine; implementation and regulation of stablecoins in the country; and on the development of a digital currency for the Ukrainian central bank. The Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for IT Development, Oleksandr Bornyakov, said in a statement:
“The Ministry of Digital Transformation is working on creating the legal environment for the development of virtual assets in Ukraine. We believe our cooperation with the Stellar Development Foundation will contribute to development of the virtual asset industry and its integration into the global financial ecosystem.”
Bornyakov further stressed the importance of creating a national digital currency, considering “most of the world’s leading countries” are already developing their own. In fact, the National Bank of Ukraine has been mulling the idea of implementing a CBDC since 2017, Bornyakov added.
This is not the first time Stellar has been named the network of choice for a digital asset project. Back in December one of the oldest banks in the world, Bankhaus von der Heydt, partnered with tokenization provider Bitbond to issue an Euro-backed stablecoin on the Stellar network, dubbed the EURB.
- In order to thank the crypto community for its support, the Ukrainian government is planning to conduct an “airdrop” to donors that have contributed crypto.
- Although the Ukrainian government accepts donations only in ETH, BTC, USDT, and DOT, Uniswap has launched an interface that converts ERC-20 tokens into ETH before sending them to Ukraine.
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- Binance and Kraken have both said they will not freeze the accounts of “innocent users”, unless there is a “legal requirement” to do so.
- Many crypto-related platforms have started actively working to support Ukraine, and will either make donations or provide emergency relief through crypto crowdfunding.
- The partnership will see MoneyGram connect its network to the Stellar blockchain, allowing connected wallets to access its global retail platform.
- The financial service company will also work with Circle to enable “near-instant backend settlement” using the USDC stablecoin.