New look central bank digital currencies and cryptomarket to emerge from turmoil: Top BIS official

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LONDON: Cryptomarkets have not been killed off by last year's turmoil, while the new wave of central bank digital currencies will face geopolitical limits, the Bank for International Settlements' new innovation head has predicted.Dubbed the central bank to the world's central bank, the BIS has long been critical of cryptocurrencies, likening bitcoin to both a ponzi scheme and market bubble in the past.Last year's collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire as well as Celcius, Three Arrows Capital and a number of "stablecoins" saw many of its warnings come true as more than US$2 trillion was wiped off the sector's value.Since the start of 2023, however, there has been something of a rebound, including a 40 per cent recovery in bitcoin's price."I would assume that the industry will learn from these failures and they will come up with new things," Cecilia Skingsley, the new head of the BIS "Innovation Hub", told Reuters in her first in-depth interview since taking the role.The former Swedish central banker also said the problems had not appeared to have affected central banks' plans for what could be swathes of nationally-issued digital currencies (CBDCs) in the coming years.As the global central bank umbrella body, the BIS has been coordinating many of the international experiments around CBDCs, which can be built either for public use or just for banks to use behind-the-scenes in the 'wholesale' money markets."Everything I hear is that those who have these projects are pushing on with them," Skingsley said.Eleven countries have already launched a CBDC while more than 100 more, representing more than 95 per cent of global GDP, are now exploring them, with this year set to see some significant milestones.China for example