Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into a law a bill called On Payment Services that allows the country’s central bank to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC), an announcement on the president’s official website, meaning The National Bank of Ukraine can now officially launch its own payment token.
On June 30, the bill was passed in Ukraine’s national parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Previously, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) had been studying the possible introduction of a CBDC since 2018. It built an early prototype on the Stellar blockchain and published a report on the subject in 2019.
