Ukrainian authorities are accelerating the development of the electronic currency hryvna, a senior government official noted. Kiev’s administrative authorities are currently in discussions with the central bank and companies involved in the project to pilot the digital currency as early as this year.
Minister Says Ukraine Aims to Launch Digital Hryvnia Earlier Than Planned
{16
Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation wants to step up efforts to finalize the development of the country’s e-hryvnia, the Mykhailo Fedorov, the ministry’s director general, revealed in an interview. According to the original plan, the pilot phase was to begin in 2024, but the government hopes to do so by the end of this year.
The first blockchain transactions with digital hryvnia have already taken place, Fedorov told business news portal RBC-Ukraine.” It is developing and I was recently presented with an electronic hryvna based on a stellar product.” The minister said.
In January 2021, the ministry chose Stellar Development Foundation as a partner in building the country’s virtual asset ecosystem, including the Central Bank of Ukraine Digital Currency (CBDC) infrastructure.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) presented the draft e-hryvnia concept to crypto industry members, banks, and other financial institutions in November 2022. In January of this year, Tascombank tested the currency on the Stellar network.
The plan to introduce CBDCs is included in the central bank’s Strategy 2025. Fedorov, who is also deputy prime minister of Ukraine, wrote a letter to the NBU, in which he said he insisted on the need to accelerate the development of electronic hryvnia.
The NBU should launch a pilot version of the digital hryvnia in 2024, as stipulated by current Ukrainian law, the digital minister reminded. Mykhailo Fedorov, who is also a supporter of crypto, stressed, “But we want to start this year, not postpone it to next year.”
Despite the ongoing conflict with Russia, Fedorov recently confirmed Kiev’s “very ambitious plan” to make Ukraine the most digitized country in the next two years.
“Digitization is the foundation for rebuilding. We are making these reforms during a war,” Fedorov toldreporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, also promising that Eastern European countries will become “the best crypto jurisdiction in the world.”
Image credit: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Real_life_photo / Shutterstock.com