Bitcoin Daily: Zimbabwe Central Bank Eyes CBDC; Visa Fast Track Welcomes Embily Bitcoin Card

The central bank in Zimbabwe will be looking into a digital currency as opposed to letting cryptocurrencies become legal tender, Bloomberg said Monday (Dec. 6).

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mangudya said the bank “[doesn’t] believe in cryptocurrencies.”

“We believe in central bank digital currency, which is basically trying to say, ‘how do we have an e-Zimbabwe dollar as opposed to cryptocurrency,’” Mangudya said, according to the report.

To further its goals, Zimbabwe will take cues from Nigeria, which rolled out a digital currency in October.

Mangudya said the FinTech group is “working very hard,” and that most central banks would be debuting central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) at some point.

Meanwhile, the price of bitcoin fell almost 5% on Monday (Dec. 6), with this continuing the trend of a brutal weekend for the popular digital coin, Reuters writes.

The rout saw the price of bitcoin going back to around what it was in early October before a huge price surge sent the coin to its record $69,000 price in November. But recently, the coin has been falling on hard times, with the price going down by 32%.

Bitcoin’s weekend troubles could’ve come from numerous sources, including a move away from riskier assets in traditional markets because of the new COVID-19 variant, along with less trading liquidity, which can happen on the weekends. As of 8 p.m. EST, bitcoin’s price sat at $50,728.

Finally, Embily USA, the U.S. arm of the European FinTech company, is now part of the Visa Fintech Fast Track program, a report from Bitcoin Magazine said Monday (Dec. 6).

With this move, Embily will get access to Visa’s massive payment network, and there will be faster onboarding times.

The company’s refillable debit card will roll out in the U.S. next year, with the card being able to be topped up with bitcoin and pay for goods and services anywhere.