Eastern Caribbean’s digital currency DCash goes live
DCash was developed in partnership with Bitt Inc for over two years. In 2019, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) and the Barbados-based fintech company, Bitt Inc., signed a contract to conduct a blockchain-issued central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot within the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU).
The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank has gone live with the pilot of its central bank digital currency: DCash.
Developed in partnership with Bitt, Inc., the digital currency is now open for business in the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Saint Christopher (St Kitts) and Nevis and Saint Lucia.
DCash is a minted digital version of the Eastern Caribbean dollar issued by the ECCB, but is claimed to be a safer, faster, and cheaper way to pay for goods and services, or send funds to other DCash holders.
Consumers and merchants can sign up to use DCash through participating financial institutions or by downloading the DCash App from Google Play or Apple Store.
The Eastern Caribbean Currency Union includes the islands of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
DCash was developed in partnership with Bitt Inc for over two years. In 2019, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) and the Barbados-based fintech company, Bitt Inc., signed a contract to conduct a blockchain-issued central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot within the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU).
Ahead of the launch, CEO of Bitt, Brian Popelka, said: “Bitt is very proud to provide the ECCB with our full stack of digital currency management systems to enhance the financial services within their member countries. The past two years of this partnership has developed from intense consultations between the Bitt team and the ECCB to our team supporting the ECCB”.
The ECCB hopes to increase opportunities for financial growth, competitiveness, and resilience for citizens of the ECCU. The DXCD pilot will address the following recurring issues.
DCash requires no bank account and has no minimum spending amount nor a minimum balance required.
The product launch comes five years after Bitt announcing a $16 million investment from Overstock to support digital currency innovation in Barbados.
With full support from the government, the firm pledged to modernize the financial infrastructure of Barbados and the Caribbean.
In late February 2016, Bitt launched a mobile wallet that used the Bitcoin Blockchain to keep track of a digitized version of the Barbadian dollar with the full backing of the Central Bank of Barbados.
The goal was to digitize every fiat currency used in the Caribbean, to place them on the Blockchain, and ease bottlenecks in trade between the islands.
