Look who's leading the digital currency line-up

Britain is arriving fairly late to the digital currency party. On Monday, April 19, the British Treasury and the Bank of England announced a joint task force to evaluate the creation of a central bank digital currency.

Look who’s already quaffed the punch. At least 60 central banks are exploring digital currencies, according to a report from the accounting firm PwC.

And look who’s already doing the boogie woogie.

Number 1 in the digital currency line-up is the Bahamas. At Number 2 is Cambodia. China is a distant third. Its currency is still in the test phase, while the Bahamas and Cambodia have live projects.

How did that happen?

There are no clear answers except PwC’s suggestion that emerging economies are more focussed on financial inclusion.

This would explain the alacrity with which the Bahamas launched its national digital currency, the sand dollar, back in October. It was, as Reuters noted, “the first national launch of a technology that could upend commercial banking and even shake t…