Ripple to develop national digital currency for Palau

The initial focus of the partnership will see the development of a US dollar-backed digital currency to help facilitate cross-border payments for the nation. According to Ripple’s official announcement, the collaboration ‘could see the implementation of the world’s first government-backed national stablecoin in the first half of 2022’.

As an island nation, Palau is vulnerable to some of the effects of climate change, and Ripple said this was one of the reasons it was chosen for the job. The firm said the XRP Ledger is ‘carbon-neutral and 120,000X more energy-efficient than Proof-of-Work blockchains’.