Montenegro’s Prime Minister, Dritan Abazovi, said on Twitter that his country is working with Ripple to create a digital currency. At Davos, Abazovi met with vice president James Wallis and CEO Brad Garlinghouse of Ripple.
Abazovi’s speech was about a central bank digital currency (CBDC). He said, “In cooperation with @Ripple and the Central Bank, we launched a pilot project to build the first digital currency or stablecoin for Montenegro.”
Since 2002, the country has not used its own currency, instead opting to use the Euro. As a result, this is an auspicious step forward for the country’s domestic digital currency. Thus yet, the Prime Minister’s use of Twitter has been limited to confirming the existence of a joint effort to initiate a CBDC test program.
The government of Montenegro has been trying for months to establish a foothold in the cryptocurrency market. A “Future Now” panel was conducted in April, and Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin was among the speakers. It was then that Buterin supposedly received Montenegrin citizenship, sparking a lot of speculations.
While coverage of the partnership with Ripple was extensive in local media shortly after its announcement on January 18, it took a couple of days for the news to spread worldwide.
