Ripple Develops Stablecoins For The Country!

Ripple will develop the Palau state-owned stablecoin. (Photo; Doc. Siam Blockchain)

JAKARTA The blockchain-based cross-border payment company, Ripple, has been selected by the island nation Palau to develop stablecoins. Palau president Surangel Whipps Jr. has a focus on digital residence and national stablecoin projects.

According to President Whipps, the Palau national stablecoin will soon be launched in partnership with Ripple and facilitate easy and secure digital payments.

On the other hand, Palau does not have an established Central Bank and the country uses the US dollar as its official currency. The goal of the national stablecoin project is to launch a USD-backed stablecoin. The president said that this would be a "step towards our own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)."

"We feel that this is important and will help make Fiat easier. Our digital population will also have banking access and through the Binance Pay option will make offers easier as well. We really believe that they are not competing but they are actually symbiotic and they can help each other and strengthen the crypto ecosystem," said Whitps, reported by CryptoSlate.

Digital Residence Act

President Whippes said the government decided to diversify its economy after facing the challenges of the pandemic and passed the Digital Residence Act to facilitate diversity earlier this year. The law allows individuals to gain digital identity from Palau through virtual processes.

Despite having gained momentum since its launch, President Whipps said the country was looking for ways to increase adoption by expanding the scope of digital residence. He stated:

"We are also looking for ways to explore other features that we can offer such as e-corporation registration so that digital residents can do business globally through a comfortable R&S Palau portal. We hope that they will be able to manage their identities, contacts and e-companies on this portal."

President Whippeps also said leading crypto executives such as Changpeng Zhao (CZ) from Binance and Vitalik Buterin (ETH) from Ethereum showed interest in the country's digital identity program. According to President Whippeps, CZ personally visited Palau to discuss collaboration options, while Buterin met with the president virtually to discuss further the expansion of the country's ID ecosystem.