Estonia to abandon national cryptocurrency plans

Estonia will not use a cryptocurrency as a national means of payment, financial media outlets tell. The European Central Bank (ECB) was strictly against the idea of using another currency in the member state of the Eurozone. Understandably, the government of Estonia has decided to limit the use of Estcoin to electronic residency program. It will serve as an internal means of payment in the upcoming versions of the platform related to this matter.

As a reminder, Estonia seriously considered to use a bank-issued digital currency (as the Bank of England would call it, CBDC), but this has met criticism even from the President of this international financial establishment responsible for the well-being of Euro. Mario Draghi stated that “no member state can introduce its own currency, as the currency of the Eurozone is still the euro.”

The electronic residency (e-residency) program has been reviewed even by senators from American states who want to implement similar digital structures. The logical next step of development of such programs is the installation of a special blockchain to further optimize paperwork, and Estonia is currently working in this field.

Estonia is not the only Baltic country to work on blockchain technologies. In fact, three states of that region are exchanging their findings in the sphere of DLT.

Image: estonia.ee