Israeli Policymakers Are Testing The Risks Of The Digital Shekel

The Israeli policymakers are testing the risks of the digital shekels but also its many possibilities as we are taking a closer look in today’s cryptocurrency news.

The Bank of Israel is sampling the opinion of the interest groups in its bid to create a national digital currency and in the quest not to fall behind the drive to develop a new central bank digital currency, the Israeli Policymakers tested the stakeholders’ views to determine the risks and limits of the national digital currency. The head of the Bank of Israel’s digital project Yoav Soffer, announced the trial and noted that knowing the opinion of the stakeholders is an ongoing process even though the digital shekel is in the developmental stage and no specific date has been fixed for the launch.

He added that some of the challenges related to a rollout of the digital currency are assessing the impact of the currency on the banking system and determining the token cost. The digital shekel will be based on the Ethereum network and according to Soffer, the project went through a lot of trials and the team is also working on further technical studies down the line:

“Right now, we are increasing the resources devoted to the digital shekel project, both in terms of finances and people. A digital shekel has great potential to increase competition and innovation within the payment industry.”

The recent efforts by the Bank of Israel to explore the prospect of the digital shekel came after an earlier attempt in 2019 and the team set up by the central bank advised against the establishment of the token at that time. However, the top economies in the world are actively pursuing digital versions of the currency and the Bank of Israel is taking another look at the prospects. A few countries like Nigeria and the Bahamas already launched digital versions of their currencies which makes it in accord with the views of experts at the Bank of America Corp who announced that their CBDC adoption by the central bank is inevitable as the countries are realizing their potentials of the technology.

China is considering a highly-advanced nation in terms of CBDCs and now the country even initiated multiple tests with the locals and released a digital yuan wallet app for iOS and Android users.