The president of Kyrguistan, Sadyr Japaronov, gave his country a step closer to issuing his own digital currency of the Central Bank on Thursday, signing legislation that grants the legal status “Digital Som”.
The country of Central Asia is still deciding whether or not to issue a CBDC, but the amendments on Thursday to the Constitutional Law of the Kyrgyn Republic ensure that the Digital Som is treated as a legal tender if the Central Bank continues with the issuance of a CBDC.
“The purpose of the Constitutional Law is to launch a pilot project of a prototype of a national digital currency, the ‘Digital’ Som ‘, as well as creating a legal basis and its state,” said a statement on the president’s site.
According to the new provisions, the National Bank of the Kyrguistan Republic may develop and approve rules to make payments on the Som digital platform.
These provisions, described as amendments on the president’s website, were first adopted on March 20 by the Supreme Council of Kyrgyzstan. The country must start trying the Digital SOM this year, according to the local news agency of the news trends. The country is not expected to make a final decision on whether the CBDC until next year.
The idea of CBDCS has been controversial among some cryptographic defenders, but countries such as the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Jamaica and the Bahamas, as well as the multinational block of the European Union, have moved in the direction of issuing a CBDC, while other countries like the United States have greatly moved away from the idea of issuing one.
