Another Caribbean Central Bank to Pilot Blockchain Currency with Overstock’s Bitt
Just months after sealing a deal with the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank to pilot blockchain currency, Overstock-owned blockchain startup Bitt is now partnering with the Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (CBCS) to do the same.
Bitt has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the central bank to explore issuing a digital Curaçao and Sint Maarten guilder digital currency.
Much like the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), that covers Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the project will focus on creating more efficient financial transactions between the islands.
CBCS has stated that it chose to work with Barbados-based Bitt due to its “regional experience in digital payments and its macroeconomic views.”
Furthermore, both of the Caribbean central banks say that they are trialling blockchain technology to improve know-your-customer, anti-money laundering (KYC/AML) procedures, that will benefit combating the financing of terrorism procedures in the region.
Acting president for CBCS, Leila Matroos-Lasten said that the bank is exploring the nascent technology’s potential to:
“reduce the level of cash usage within the monetary union, and to facilitate more secure, more AML and KYC compliant and more efficient financial transactions within and between Curaçao and Sint Maarten.”
Currently, these Central Banks print and distribute physical cash across member states, which come with many security challenges and is a costly process. Bitt CEO, Rawdon Adams, stated:
“A central bank issued digital currency is of particular relevance in a monetary union where member states are separated by long distances, or the ocean, as with the ECCU and the situation of Curaçao and Sint Maarten.”
Bitt’s Adams, stated that a central bank issued digital currency, which can be used on a digital wallet on a mobile phone or tablet, within and across jurisdictions in the monetary union “facilitates secure and frictionless financial transactions and payments.”
The ECCB have stated that the blockchain pilot is part of the Bank’s Strategic Plan 2017-2021, which aims to boost economic growth and competitiveness of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) to meet monetary and financial stability objectives. Governor of the ECCB, Timothy N. J. Antoine said:
“the ECCB promotes the safety and soundness of the financial system in the ECCU, it also has a responsibility to encourage and support innovation… To that end, blockchain technology merits our attention and consideration”
According to a press release, the ECCB pilot is scheduled to launch next year, within restricted and controlled environments, supervised by the bank. Potentially, the results could help issue a digital currency for the region.
ABOUT BITT, Inc.
Founded in 2013, by Gabriel Abed and Oliver Gale. Bitt Inc. is a portfolio company of U.S. e-commerce firm Overstock. Medici Ventures was setup by Overstock CEO Patrick M. Byrne, an advocate of cryptocurrency, to develop blockchain-powered solutions to “solve real-world problems.”
In 2017, Rawdon Adams, the son of former Barbados prime minister Tom Adams (1976 to 1985), was appointed as the company’s new CEO. In the same year, Bitt partnered with the central bank of Barbados for the advancement of pilot blockchain projects, and Premier Donaldson Romeo of Montserrat announced his intention to sign up for a pilot with Bitt, which he did in February 2018.
