A Washington, DC-based firm has launched a brand new digital foreign money overseen by the Commodities Futures and Commerce Fee.
Unicoin, launched earlier this month by the Digital Foreign money Financial Authority (DCMA), is designed to be an “worldwide central financial institution digital foreign money” (CBDC) able to supporting instantaneous cross-border funds.
The DCMA’s executive director Darrell Hubbard said Unicoin was designed to be “the most effective of each worlds”, bringing advantages of cryptocurrencies and CBDCs.
“As a crypto asset, Unicoin adopts financial insurance policies to make sure it sustains its retailer of worth stronger than any fiat foreign money whereas concurrently complying with banking rules to strengthen financial sovereignty,” Hubbard mentioned.
He argued that central banks “don’t absolutely perceive the driving forces behind cryptocurrency adoption and have missed the mark on their analysis, growth, and launch of CBDC tasks”. Buyers in crypto property see CBDCs “extra like a memento” than an innovation, he added.
In a white paper discussing the new cryptocurrency, Hubbard additionally asserted that conventional banks “might quickly turn out to be out of date” if they don’t embrace innovation and disruption.
The announcement comes as US regulators and policymakers proceed to debate how digital currencies and different crypto property may be introduced beneath regulatory supervision.
Final week, the Home Monetary Providers Subcommittee on Digital Belongings, Monetary Know-how and Inclusion held a listening to on a draft invoice introducing a regulatory framework for stablecoins, that are pegged to the worth of different property such because the US greenback.
In a statement to the subcommittee, the American Bankers Affiliation supported most of the framework’s options however expressed “vital concern” about opening the fee system as much as unregulated non-bank entities.
The affiliation mentioned: “The Federal Reserve doesn’t seem to have discretion to reject these certified state fee stablecoin issuers from changing into registered [which] introduces an unacceptable degree of threat to the monetary system.”
Individually, New York’s Division of Monetary Providers has expanded its digital currency regulation to provide it a approach of assessing how a lot licensed firms might be charged for regulation.
The state’s regulatory framework relies on banking supervision guidelines and requires licensed firms to adjust to minimal capitalization requirements, cybersecurity provisions, and anti-money laundering guidelines.
