Montenegro Prime Minister Doritán Abazovic tweeted that the country is promoting a digital currency jointly with Ripple.announced. Abazovich met with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Vice President James Wallis at the Davos conference.
Wallis is Vice President of Central Bank Engagement and CBDC at Ripple. As Abazovic said on Twitter, the announcement appears to have something like Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) in mind.
“With the cooperation of Ripple and the central bank, we have launched a pilot project to build Montenegro’s first digital currency and stablecoin.”
However, Montenegro currently does not have a national currency, so it is unclear what the future digital currency will look like. Montenegro is neither part of the euro zone nor the European Union (EU), but the Balkan countries have used the euro as their national currency since 2002.
The Montenegro government has been showing interest in the cryptocurrency space for several months. In April, it held a panel titled “Future Now!” with the participation of Ethereum co-developer Vitalik Buterin. Buterin reportedly acquired Montenegrin citizenship at that time.
Advisors to Ripple pledged new activity for CBDC deals last year, specifically mentioning Bhutan and Palau among “several pilots underway.” The company is also a founding member of the Digital Dollar Project and joined the Digital Euro Association in February 2022.
