[Re-sent] February 4, 2023

🪙Ripple Selected To Develop Montenegro's CBDC

February 05, 2023

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Your 5 minute emerging market web3 weekly update

In This Issue

Eastern Europe🔸Ripple Partners With Montenegro to Develop CBDC🔸Alfa-Bank Approved to Launch Platform to Tokenize Monetary Claims and Physical Assets

Africa🔸Bitcoin Adoption by One of South Africa’s Largest Supermarket Chains🔸Africa’s Oldest Protected Park Saved by Bitcoin Mining

Asia🔸Ambitious Target for Digital Yuan Adoption Set for Chinese City of Suzhou🔸India’s Largest Retail Chain to Begin to Accept Retail CBDC Payments

Latin America and The Caribbean🔸Argentine Crypto Exchange Integrates With DeFi Protocol Aave🔸Binance Planning to Launch Crypto-Backed Mastercard in Brazil

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Eastern Europe

Image Credit: Kanchanara via Unsplash

The Central Bank of Montenegro has partnered with Ripple to launch a pilot project for a national digital currency (CBDC). The announcement was made by Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic after he met with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Ripple Vice President James Wallace. Further details of how the two groups will work together have not been released yet.Alfa-Bank Approved to Launch Platform to Tokenize Monetary Claims and Physical Assets (2 minute read, Russian)

Alfa-Bank in Russia has been included in the Central Bank of Russia's register of digital financial assets operators and has launched its own platform for issuing digital financial assets (DFA). Alfa-Bank plans to use its platform for self-issuance of DFA and to provide its infrastructure to market issuers. The pilot release of the DFA is expected at the end of February, and the bank plans to issue two types of DFA, tokenized monetary claims and tokenized physical assets.

Africa

Image Credit: Simon Kadula via Unsplash

Pick n Pay, one of South Africa's largest supermarket chains, is now accepting Bitcoin payments at all of its locations after a successful pilot program in selected branches in November 2022. The retail chain became the first major retailer in Africa to test Bitcoin Lightning Network payments at its points of sale through integration with the CryptoConvert Lightning Payments API and Bitcoin wallet Electrum. The widespread adoption of cryptocurrency as a payment method was made possible by the declaration of cryptocurrency as a financial product by South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority.

Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has become the world's first national park to run a Bitcoin mine in order to protect its forests and wildlife. The park was struggling with financial problems due to a combination of violence, Ebola outbreaks, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in the loss of tourists and 40% of its revenue. The Bitcoin mine, which operates on clean energy, has generated significant income for the park, almost entirely offsetting lost tourist income and saving the park from bankruptcy.

Asia

Image Credit: Eric Prouzet via Unsplash

Officials from Suzhou, China have set a target of processing $300 billion in digital yuan transactions by the end of 2023 and $30 billion in digital yuan loans for small and mid-sized businesses. The target is to be achieved through promotional efforts by municipal administrators, who are also responsible for overseeing the development of the city's digital finance ecosystem. In 2022, digital yuan transactions in the city surpassed $50 billion at 930,000 local businesses and government offices, with over 30 million digital wallet downloads.

Reliance Retail, India's largest retail chain, is set to begin accepting retail CBDC payments, making it the largest Indian firm to adopt the digital rupee and provides customers with another efficient and secure alternative payment method. The company said it has rolled out support for digital rupee payments at its Freshpik gourmet store line and plans to eventually extend it to all of its properties. Reliance Retail has partnered with ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and fintech Innoviti Technologies to launch the in-store support for the digital rupee.

Latin America and The Caribbean

Image Credit: Shubham Dhage via Unsplash

Argentina-based Lemon Cash has integrated with Aave to allow users access to decentralized finance (DeFi) services. With over 1.7 million users, Lemon Cash has already deposited more than $4.1 million in Aave. The integration with Aave was chosen due to the security, active community, and over-collateralized loans offered by the protocol.Binance Planning to Launch Crypto-Backed Mastercard in Brazil (2 minute read, Portuguese)

Binance is set to launch its cryptocurrency credit card in Brazil in the coming weeks under the Mastercard brand. The card will allow payments using 13 different cryptocurrencies. According to Mastercard's 2022 global New Payments Index survey, Brazil is one of the markets with the highest interest in crypto worldwide: 49% of Brazilian consumers made at least one transaction with crypto in the 12 months prior to the report, compared to a overall average of 41%.

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