Zimbabwean authorities are thinking about introducing a gold-backed digital currency

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) intends to introduce a digital currency backed by gold. About this local paper The Sunday Mail said the head of the RBZ John Mangudia. As noted, the introduction of a digital currency is one of the types of interventions that the country’s central bank undertakes to stabilize the national currency.

It is assumed that the “gold” tokens will be primarily in demand by small bank depositors who will be able to transfer their money into them, hedging themselves from the depreciation of the Zimbabwean dollar.

For the RZB, this is the second turn to gold to protect the local currency. Last year, the bank issued gold coins in the hope of removing excess money supply from circulation.

In 2009, during a period of massive hyperinflation, the country abolished its own currency, the Zimbabwean dollar, and replaced it with the US dollar and the South African rand. The Zimbabwean dollar was restored ten years later. In June 2022, reports Bloomberg, the US dollar again became legal tender along with the national currency. At the official exchange rate of Z$1,000.4 per US dollar, the “street” rate is Z$1,750 per US dollar.

Andrey Kelekeyev