Launch

The Northern Mariana Islands will compete with Wyoming to launch a government-backed stablecoin through a stablecoin bill

ChainCatcher news reports that the Northern Mariana Islands legislature overwhelmingly overturned the governor's veto on May 16, officially approving the issuance of the government-backed stablecoin "Mariana Dollar" (MUSD). The bill stipulates that MUSD will be fully backed 1:1 by U.S. dollars and government bonds held by the government, and will be issued on the eCash blockchain.Marianas Rai Corporation, a technology company from Tinian, has been designated as the exclusive technology partner. The local government stated that this is not only a financial innovation but also part of an economic revitalization strategy, with accompanying measures in the bill including the issuance of internet casino licenses.Meanwhile, Wyoming has also passed a similar bill to prepare for the issuance of the "Wyoming Stable Token." Analysts point out that if MUSD can be launched before July, it will become the first stablecoin issued by a local government in the United States, and its market performance will provide important references for subsequent policies.Experts believe that the competition between these two regions may influence the legislative process for digital currencies in the United States, but technical implementation and compliance operations still face challenges. The federal government's attitude towards such local stablecoin projects will become a focal point of future attention.

The Bank for International Settlements and the New York Federal Reserve have launched Project Pine to test smart contract tools, exploring the application of tokenized monetary policy

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has partnered with the Innovation Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to conduct research testing a tokenized monetary policy toolkit based on smart contracts. This experiment, named Project Pine, aims to explore how blockchain technology can help central banks achieve rapid policy responses in future tokenized financial systems.According to a report released by the BIS on May 15, the research team developed a prototype of a "universal customizable tokenized monetary policy toolkit" and validated its flexibility in hypothetical scenarios. The results showed that central banks could instantly adjust policy tool parameters, such as collateral standards and interest rates, and complete the substitution of liquidity collateral and non-liquid collateral within 10 minutes.The BIS emphasized that if currency and securities tokenization are widely adopted, smart contracts will become the core technology for implementing monetary policy. This framework allows central banks to "instantly" deploy new facilities, such as adjusting reserve interest rates or providing liquidity support, enabling rapid responses to crises like declines in collateral value. The report stated that this speed and flexibility provide central banks with new ideas for addressing "emergencies and rapidly evolving risks."However, the report also pointed out the limitations of the current financial infrastructure. Most traditional systems are not yet compatible with advanced use cases like smart contracts, and central banks may face challenges in advancing technological integration. The testing of Project Pine used the Ethereum ERC-20 token standard and combined it with another "access control" standard to ensure compliance.In recent years, financial institutions have accelerated their layout of tokenization technology. At the Consensus 2025 conference, Joseph Spiro, Director of Digital Asset Products at the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), stated that stablecoins are an "ideal" tool for real-time collateral management in transactions such as loans or derivatives. This collaboration between the BIS and central banks further confirms the trend of exploration of blockchain technology in the traditional financial sector.
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