European Central Bank (ECB) executive board member Fabio Panetta has been a vocal supporter of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and cryptocurrency sceptic, and he presented his latest argument for CBDC on Jan. 5. Writing on the official ECB blog, he said that, by developing CBDCs, central banks “will safeguard the trust on which private forms of money ultimately depend.”

Indonesia has plans to launch a national crypto exchange this year before it hands over regulatory oversight of the industry to its Financial Services Authority.

When it comes to the “crypto” part of cryptocurrencies, David Chaum’s work predates the crypto ecosystem. His efforts as a renowned cryptographer date back to 1989, long before Bitcoin (BTC) was a thing. 

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) has completed the first trial of its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the Digital Turkish Lira, and has signaled plans to continue testing throughout 2023. According to a statement released by the CBRT on Dec. 29, the central bank authority said it successfully executed its “first payment transactions” using the digital Lira. (Cointelegraph)

A former official of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, has expressed disappointment that China’s digital yuan is seeing little use. Xie Ping, a former PBOC research director and current finance professor at Tsinghua University, made critical public comments about China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) at a recent university conference, according to a Dec. 28 Caixin report. (Cointelegraph)

On Thursday, the Central Bank of Turkey announced that it had successfully completed the first payment transactions using the Digital Turkish Lira Network as part of the first phase of experimentation. During the first three months of 2023, the central bank stated that it would proceed with the continuation of the Turkish CBDC’s “limited, closed-circuit pilot tests.”

The Central Bank of Turkey (CBRT) has conducted the first tests of its Turkish digital lira.

A joint research effort between the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology into the technical feasibility of a potential central bank digital currency is now complete.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced a planned collaboration with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Philippines’ central bank, to create a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The IMF said its role will be to advise the country’s central bank on the technicalities involved in creating the CBDC. Apart from offering technical help, the IMF noted that it will be involved in training BSP staff on the application of digital versions of the currency. (coingeek)

We have extracted some key comments from the Liaison Council members, with regards to cost, pilot participation, technology and the financial intermediary function, and added our comments.