Ecuador To Forge Ahead With State-Backed Digital Currency

First time accepted submitter jaeztheangel writes Ecuador's government has approved plans to start a new Digital Currency backed by the state. With defaults in recent history, and dwindling oil reserves it will be interesting to see how this decision turns out. From the article: "Congress last month approved legislation to start a digital currency for use alongside the U.S. dollar, the official tender in Ecuador. Once signed into law, the country will begin using the as-yet-unnamed currency as soon as October. A monetary authority will be established to regulate the money, which will be backed by 'liquid assets.'”

I think you are looking at this the wrong way

[dbIII]

It looks to me as if it's just about printing less banknotes and using phones etc as electronic wallets. It's nothing like bitcoin. It's more like what some banks are starting to do with payment apps on phones, only instead of having backend mechanisms in the bank to make sure the dollars are there it's about having identifiers on the currency so it can be checked for legitimacy.