Caribbean Digital Currency, DCash, Remains Offline for Second Week
Caribbean Digital Currency, DCash, Remains Offline for Second Week
(Bloomberg) -- DCash -- the digital currency used by seven Caribbean nations -- has been down for the last two weeks and it’s unclear when it will be back online, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank said Friday.
In an email, Karina Johnson, a DCash project manager at the bank, said officials were working “around the clock” with their service provider Bitt Inc. “to re-establish full transaction capabilities as quickly as possible.” The outage started on Jan. 14.
“The security and integrity of all DCash applications and architecture, including all central bank and financial institutions, and merchant and wallet apps remain secure and unaffected,” Johnson said. The statement emphasized that DCash transaction data was also “safe and secure”.
Barbados-based Bitt Inc. referred questions about the outage to the bank. Founded in 2013, Bitt has become a global player in the CBDC space. In October, the company helped Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, launch its own digital currency, the eNaira.
The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank launched DCash, an electronic version of the Eastern Caribbean dollar, in March of 2021, making it the first monetary union in the world to use a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.
While the project is still in “pilot” phase, the digital fiat has been rolled out in Dominica, Montserrat, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.