After months of research, the Tanzanian central bank announced recently that it had chosen a more cautious and risk-based approach towards the adoption of its central bank digital currency (CBDC). During the research phase, the central bank said it paid particular attention “to risks and controls associated with issuance, distribution, counterfeit and usage of currencies.”

The central bank of Georgia intends to publish a document detailing the concept of a national digital currency in the coming months. Other participating parties will use it to finalize their proposals for the pilot which the monetary authority plans to initiate in the first half of the year. (Bitcoin.com)

The central bank of Tanzania says it is still debating whether to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC), but it would proceed with a “phased, cautious, and risk-based approach” after finding several issues that might hinder its adoption.

Tanzania's central bank says it is still considering the introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) but will be a taking "phased, cautious and risk-based approach" after identifying several challenges that could impact its implementation. According to a Jan. 14 public notice from The Bank of Tanzania, since its 2021 announcement about a possible CBDC rollout, the East African country formed a multidisciplinary technical team to explore the risks and benefits of CBDCs. The bank revealed its team has conducted research looking into different types of CBDCs, models for issuance and management and whether it could be token-based or account-based. (Cointelegraph)

Tascombank, one of the oldest banking institutions in Ukraine, has completed the pilot testing of a digital currency based on the Stellar network. The bank believes that its electronic money platform represents an economically viable implementation of blockchain technology.

The latest Bank of International Settlements bulletin looks at ways to mitigate the risks of crypto assets and suggests TradFi could get its house in better order too.

For the first time ever, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has included its central bank digital currency (CBDC) in official cash reports. China’s digital yuan, otherwise known as e-CNY, amounted to 13.61 billion yuan (roughly $2 billion) by the end of December, per official figures reviewed by the South China Morning Post. That reportedly converts to 0.13% of China’s outstanding monetary base supply. (Blockworks)

In a Word on the Block interview, Mitchell Amador, the founder and chief executive officer of Immunefi, a Web 3.0 bug bounty platform, told Forkast about how the introduction of central bank digital currencies may highlight the security benefits of the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry.

A stablecoin will likely serve as a “first use case of what is likely to be a wholesale settlement coin” in the “long runtime” leading up to the potential introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), Member of Parliament and HM Treasury Economic Secretary Andrew Griffith said.

Russia’s central bank is reportedly set to begin developing a cross-border settlement system using its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) amid ongoing sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine. The plans to move forward with Russia’s digital ruble are expected to come in the first quarter of 2023 and will see Russia's central bank study two possible cross-border settlement models, according to a Jan. 9 report from local media outlet Kommersant. The first proposed model sees various countries entering into separate bilateral agreements with Russia to integrate their CBDC systems. (Cointelegraph)