Ukraine is one of the countries that are now progressing in exploring the possibility of virtual assets and Central Bank digital currency.
The Ukrainian government has partnered with the Stellar Development Foundation to develop and launch a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). This is according to a press release made available by SDF on Monday. Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation and SDF signed a Memorandum of Understanding to ‘work on both a central bank digital currency as well as stablecoin and virtual asset infrastructure’.
Oleksandr Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation and IT, says:
“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 the development of the virtual asset industry and its integration into the global financial ecosystem.”
In 2017, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) commenced research into the feasibility of an e-hryvnia. The following year, an e-hryvnia CBDC Pilot Project was launched in which a “private version of the Stellar blockchain” was used.
Terms of the MoU stipulate that the two parties involved are responsible for:
- The development of a digital assets market locally
- Rendering support to projects associated with digital assets
- Issuance of stablecoin in Ukraine and regulating its circulation
- The development of a Ukrainian CBDC
NBU is by no means the first major financial institution to partner with the blockchain technology company. On December 9, Germany’s Bankhaus von der Heydt announced the issuance of EURB, a Euro stablecoin on Stellar.
SDF CEO Dennel Dixon affirmed that the partnership to launch the e-hryvnia will begin this month.
“We believe digital assets and national digital currencies are one of the most important innovations of our lifetimes and we are excited to play a role in the creation of Ukraine’s digital asset infrastructure […] We’ve been in conversations with governments and institutions all over the world about the key considerations for issuing CBDCs. It’s important to remember many, if not all, of these organizations weren’t designed to be technology companies and that they have many audiences that they are supporting. That makes a public-private partnership so essential to getting this right,” said he.
Ukraine has now joined such countries as China, Hong Kong Japan and the Bahamas in exploring the possibility of virtual assets and Central Bank digital currency.
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