Palau reportedly partners with Ripple to launch national stablecoin

Island country Palau partnered with crypto technology company Ripple to develop a national stablecoin for the country, as reported by Wu Blockchain.

The country’s President, Surangel Whipps Jr, virtually joined a panel on web 3.0, Metaverse, and the future of blockchain. He talked about the country’s digital residency policy and national stablecoin project.

National Stablecoin

According to President Whipps, Palau’s national stablecoin will launch soon in partnership with Ripple and facilitate easy and secure digital payments.

Palau doesn’t have an established Central Bank, and the country uses the U.S. dollar as its official currency. The goal of the national stablecoin project is to launch a USD-backed stablecoin. The president said this would be a “step toward our own Central Bank Digital Currency.”

Referring to the stablecoin project, President Whipps said:

“We feel that this is important and it will help make Fiat on ramping easier. Our digital residents will also have banking access and through Binance Pay options will make offering easier too. We really believe that they don’t compete but they actually are symbiotic and they can help each other and strengthen the crypto ecosystem.”

Digital Residency

President Whipps said that the government decided to diversify its economy after facing the challenges of the pandemic and passed the Digital Residency Act to facilitate diversity earlier this year. The act allows individuals to get a digital identity from Palau via a virtual process.

Even though it has been gaining momentum since its launch, President Whipps said that the country is looking for ways to increase adoption by extending the digital residency scope. He stated:

“We’re also looking at exploring other features that we could offer like registration of e-corporations so that digital residents can conduct business globally through Palau’s convenient R&S portal. We’re hoping that they will be able to manage their identity, contacts, and e-corporations on this portal.”

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