But what does this all mean for those who have little interest in cryptocurrencies? What do we make of the technology, the people and the start-ups that operate in this ecosystem?
TIME FOR BETTER FINANCIAL INNOVATION
My view is that the future of decentralised finance (DeFi) and digital assets is still bright. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) certainly thinks so, with their “yes to digital asset innovation, no to cryptocurrency” approach.
At the recent Singapore FinTech Festival, MAS unveiled two groundbreaking projects: Project Orchid and Project Guardian. It’s worth being precise about some technical details here.
Project Orchid is a generalised architecture for digital bearer instruments – simply put, you could store and use this digital money without needing a bank account or going through other intermediaries. There are three possible types of such digital money, that can be based on blockchain technology: Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) issued by central banks, tokenised bank deposits issued by commercial banks, and stablecoins issued by private companies.
Project Orchid goes one further than just a digital Singapore dollar by introducing Purpose Bound Money (PBM), which allows conditions to be set on its use.
Most Singaporeans will be familiar with CDC vouchers that can only be spent at heartland merchants. PBM could build this condition into the digital vouchers to be spent at designated merchants, and also for these vouchers to be transferred between individuals. Or consider how donors could specify how charities spend their donations, enabling transparency and increasing accountability.
This news is republished from another source. You can check the original article here