摘要：The Bank of Japan (BoJ) held its first official meeting with the country’s government to discuss the central bank digital currency (CBDC). As the local TV channel NHK reported on Jan. 26, the governme...
The Bank of Japan (BoJ) held its first official meeting with the country’s government to discuss the central bank digital currency (CBDC). As the local TV channel NHK reported on Jan. 26, the government and the BoJ agreed to resolve the legal issues related to issuing digital yen in the spring of 2024.
However, neither the BoJ nor the government have officially confirmed the launch of the digital yen. Any decision will be taken after “a national discussion” no sooner than in 2026.
In December 2023, the BoJ saw a report of the expert panel from the Ministry of Finance, recommending issuing a digital yen “without delay.” The experts decided that the Japanese CBDC should coexist with cash and that the BoJ must limit the potential personal data storage to a minimum.
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The BoJ concluded the second phase of CBDC testing in May 2023. It ran for a year and included 100,000 users with five intermediaries at loads of 500 and 3,000 transactions per second. The experiment was declared successful and the BOJ moved on to its scheduled CBDC pilot project, which should examine “end-to-end process flow” and further connections with external systems.
Despite its global reputation as a “cash-based” society, Japan consistently takes a positive stance toward CBDC, while, for example, in the United States, lawmakers and presidential candidates are leading a crusade against central bank digital money. However, the pro-CBDC position of the BoJ doesn’t result in an anti-crypto policy. From April 2024, local businesses may be spared of the “unrealized gains” taxes on cryptocurrency holdings.
Asia remains more open to the idea of CBDC, with China being the pioneer, already gradually implementing its “digital yuan,” while Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India and South Korea researching their options.
In early January, the National Bank of Cambodia announced that it would introduce the CBDC in the country by the end of this year. “The exercise of introducing ‘Lanka Pay’ and ‘Central Bank Digital Currencies’ has already begun,” — the Bank stated.
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