List of Countries Issuing Their Own National Cryptocurrencies

Japan has been contemplating the launch of its own cryptocurrency since 2017. It will be called J-Coin and its expected launch is sometime in 2020. J-Coin will be somewhat equal to its current national currency, Yen, with a ratio of 1:1, using which the citizens would be able to buy any goods or services. 

Sweden is another country that is working very hard to launch its first cryptocurrency called E-krona. Iota is one of the solution provider under considerations to feed into the design of the e-kroner. IOTA, if you aren’t aware, is a popular cryptocurrency in the decentralized market that works on a directed acyclic graph-based data structure, without any block, chain or miners.

There is a tug of war going on between the Russian president and the Russian Central Bank. Putin ordered the creation of Russia’s own cryptocurrency called Cryptoruble but not much work has been completed yet due to the lack of interest of behalf of the Russian Central Bank. However, it is still in the works and we can expect its launch to be sometime in mid-2019.

The government of Estonia is very enthusiastic about cryptocurrency in general and had proposed to launch their very own cryptocurrency based on Ethereum, back in August 2017. Its proposed name is Estcoin and to this day, not much work has been done as it is still in its proposal stages. Vitalik Buterin supported the idea of Estcoin and expressed his desire for Estonia to become the third country in the world to launch its own cryptocurrency.

Update: The plan has recently been rolled back

In 2017, the Central Bank of Israel mentioned that it was planning to launch its own digital currency that has the same value as their current paper currency. The main aim of the digital currency is to automate digital payments, making it easier for the citizens to pay bills and other charges securely. The exact date of its launch is not confirmed, but it is expected to launch soon.

Dubai holds the title as the first country to launch its first cryptocurrency called Emcash back in 2017. Emcash operates on the basis of their own blockchain and is being used in various government and non-government activities such as utility bills, coffee charges and purchases we make every day. It is a huge step taken by the government of U.A.E and we can see Dubai going completely cashless much sooner than you know it.

Venezuela holds the title for the second country in the world to launch its very own cryptocurrency called Petro. It was announced back in December 2017 and was successfully launched in 2018. It is claimed to be backed up by the country’s oil and mineral reserves and the government is intending to use its cryptocurrency to outsource US sanctions and access international financing.

The government of Tunisia have decided to integrate blockchain technology with eDinar and deployed the national payment platform, namely Monetas. EDinar is widely used to make money transfers also, and users can pay their bills as well. The platform Monetas will also be used to manage official identification documents.

After taking inspiration from Tunisia, Senegal launched its first digital currency, eCFA. This has been made possible by the collaboration between Banque Regionale de Marches and the Senegalese bank. It is based entirely on the blockchain. It is also designed to be compatible with other digital currencies in Africa. We’ll soon see Senegal going cashless in no time.