Singapore’s central bank chief Ravi Menon sees private cryptocurrencies failing: ‘they will eventually leave the scene’

Private cryptocurrencies that failed the fundamental tests of financial services will eventually exit the monetary scene, according to Singapore’s central bank chief.

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“Nobody keeps their life savings in these things. People buy and sell these things to make a quick buck.”

In contrast, regulators are moving toward a system of stablecoins that are fully backed by high-quality government securities or cash, allowing them to be used like narrow money, Menon said. “The beauty is it’s in token form and it can be used for variety of innovative applications.”

The regulator is also working on the facilitation of offline transactions.

The RBI is among a handful of central banks that has launched a CBDC on a pilot basis, counting about 2.75 million participants so far. Rao sees the scope for the central bank digital currency to be expanded further to include interbank money market transactions.

So far CBDCs are on a bilateral basis, and going forward there’s need for greater thought on how to implement it on a multilateral basis, Rao said.