The Central Bank of The Bahamas plans to issue a national crypto already next month, Bloomberg reports.
According to the news outlet, the country wants to become the first country in the world to launch a state-backed national crypto.
Chaozhen Chen, deputy director of eSolutions at the Central Bank of the Bahamas, said the creation of the crypto, dubbed "Sand Dollar," aims to promote greater financial inclusion among all the islands that make up the archipelago.
According to him, the peculiarities of the country, which is made up of multiple islands, have resulted in a large number of citizens not having access to a digital or banking payment infrastructure.
The launch of this digital currency will help solve this problem, as transactions with the digital coin will be made through mobile phones, a device a 90% of the country's citizens own.
The Sand Dollars will be protected by the same regulations and guarantees as the Bahamian dollar, including protections against money laundering as well as KYC procedures for the creation of the accounts needed to use the digital currency.
The coin will be issued as demand increases, while Bahamian dollars will be withdrawn at the same time in order to reduce the potential impact on the money supply.
Each Sand Dollar is pegged to the Bahamian dollar, which is in turn linked to the US dollar.
iHodl reported in December last year the country planned to issue its own national digital currency.
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