Ripple, Visa join HK CBDC pilot, Huobi accusations, GameFi token up 300%: Asia Express By Cointelegraph

On May 18, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced the launch of the cyber Hong Kong dollar pilot project. According to officials, 16 selected companies from the financial payment and technology sectors will conduct the first round of trials this year on the feasibility of a Hong Kong dollar central bank digital currency (e-HKD). Companies included in the pilot include Alibaba (NYSE:) Group’s Alipay Financial, Mastercard (NYSE:) Asia, Labs, Visa (NYSE:), and HSBC.

The digital Hong Kong dollar will start off with six potential uses cases; comprehensive payments, programmable payments, offline payments, tokenized deposits, Web 3.0 transaction settlements, and tokenized asset settlements. The CBDC is scheduled for a three-stage approach, with the novel pilot program being an important aspect of the second stage.