Zimbabwe moves to digital currency

The country of Zimbabwe announced that has plans to move to digital currency joining other countries from Africa and Asia. 

The currency is scheduled to be launched Monday with introductions of “tokens”  which are backed gold reserves and can be transferred between people and businesses as a form of payment.

The move is aimed at shoring up the Zimbabwe dollar, which is fast depreciating amid yearslong economic woes in the southern African nation. 

Trust in Zimbabwe’s currency is desperately low after people in 2008 had their savings wiped out by hyperinflation which reached 5 billion percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, nearly a world record.

The hyperinflation resulted in the country at one point issuing a 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars banknote before the government was forced to temporarily scrap its currency and allow the U.S. dollar to be used as legal tender.

 Nigeria has launched a digital currency which the Central Bank of Nigeria says is a “major step forward in the evolution of money” in Africa’s most populous country.



The Bahamas, Jamaica and are backed by their central banks, with several other countries, including China, running trial projects.

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