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The North African nation of Tunisia is on the verge of releasing its very own central bank digital currency (CBDC)—a digitized version of the Tunisian dinar—according to a report from Russian media outlet Tass.
The digital currency will reportedly launch using tech from Russian startup Universa Blockchain, which has been working with the government of Tunisia on the project for the last year.
Universa Blockchain CEO Alexander Borodich announced Thursday that Tunisia’s e-dinar is now ready to launch during the annual meeting of the Forex Club of Tunisia, noting that his company’s blockchain technology aims to deliver a more secure and efficient monetary system for the country.
"Electronic banknotes cannot be counterfeited—each such banknote, like the paper version, is protected by cryptography, it, like the paper counterpart, has its own digital watermarks,” he said at the event. “And the production of such a banknote is 100 times cheaper than wasting ink, paper, electricity for the printing press.”
Tunisia’s e-dinar opens the door to further blockchain-based projects for the country, Borodich said, including potentially a digital wallet linked to the national ID of every citizen, and the storage of important records and other sensitive data on a national blockchain.
All the while, according to Tass, Universa will pocket a percentage of every transaction that Tunisian citizens make on its network.