Palau to Launch National Stablecoin With Ripple

The Republic of Palau, an Oceanian country known to have over 500 islands, has teamed up with payment protocol Ripple Labs to develop its national stablecoin.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the current sitting president of the region Surangel Whipps Jr. shared details of the ongoing project and other strategies which Palau is taking on to boost its digitization and the full integration of blockchain technology.

The president spoke of stablecoins as a means of making payments more safe, easy, and more secure.

Hence, the launch of the Palau national stablecoin may happen soon enough. Whipps Jr. mentioned that the country would “take advantage of new technologies,” citing the recent passing of the Digital Residency Act as one of the few moves that have been made so far.

Whipps Jr. recognized Palau’s small population of about 20,000 people as an advantage to its current digitization push.

“This is a new world for Palau, but we are excited to be part of it. One of the advantages that we have is we’re small and hopefully we can mobilize our government and be more adaptive to the changes that need to be made in this fast-changing environment,” he said

Palau Has a Digital Asset Strategy

This is not the first time Palau is talking to Ripple about developing a digital currency. In 2021, it was clearly stated that the nation tapped Ripple to develop a United States dollar-pegged digital currency to enhance cross-border payments. Notably, Palau mentioned that it did not have to be a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). From discussions, the launch was meant to happen in the first half of this year.

Changpeng Zhao ‘CZ’, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of leading digital assets service provider Binance was also in Palau to discuss the integration of Binance Pay into the country’s payment system, according to the president. At the time, the island nation was issuing Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to be used as ID for its Root Name System Digital Residency program.

These NFTs were issued on Binance’s BNB Chain in collaboration with California-based innovative commercial lab Cryptic Labs.

Binance was also crucial to certain regulations which the sandy country was expected to put in place for the digital residency project, especially the Corporate Registry Act. “It’s good to have a commitment from Binance to help us from the regulatory side,” President Surangel Whipps Jr. said at the time.