Inca Digital’s Investigation Team is often tasked with collecting hidden data on crypto market participants. Although the blockchain space supplies troves of open data to sift through, trading venue activity often remains a mystery due to unreliable trade data and a lack of transparency from trading venue owners. To fill these data gaps, we leverage a variety of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques that can produce reliable datasets based on the digital footprint of crypto users. In the…

The Bahamas’ Sand Dollar is a distributed CBDC that was rolled out on October 20, 2020. The Bahamas is one of the first countries to move beyond pilot testing of its CBDC. It has a functioning blockchain ecosystem and is progressing in creating CBDC-specific legislation. As The Bahamas is an island nation and has many residents who do not have access to financial services, the Sand Dollar’s main objective is to provide greater financial inclusion across all the country.

Europe’s Digital Euro is a joint CBDC project of the EU member countries. As of February 2021, the European countries are more or less on the same stage of conceptualizing the legislative, technical, and business components necessary for a CBDC. The only exception is France, which has already conducted two pilot tests. Despite the countries’ independent efforts, the European Central Bank (ECB) will be the one responsible for the introduction of the Digital Euro. Christine Lagarde, President of…

Venezuela’s Petro, also known as Petromoneda, is an allegedly oil-backed CBDC introduced in 2018. Although actively pushed by the Maduro government, Petro has not been actively used by the Venezuelan citizens. Most of it was being immediately sold for US dollars or exchanged for goods and services. Despite the lack of adoption, the Venezuelan government managed to put together one of the most advanced CBDC projects, making Venezuela one of the first countries to introduce a CBDC legislation and…

Russia’s Digital Ruble is a CBDC designed to be an additional form of money equivalent to cash and non-cash rubles. Currently, the country is discussing the preferred architecture, model, and blockchain, and the government has already tested a CBDC prototype. From a technical standpoint, Russia has created a technical foundation for Venezuela’s CBDC (Petro), as we discuss further below. This suggests the country is in advanced stages of technological implementation.

The Nakamoto Terminal CBDC Factbook is a compilation of intelligence insights on international efforts to create Central Bank Digital Currencies. Most of the information presented in the Factbook is derived from natural language, financial, and technical datasets collected, cleaned, and enriched by Inca Digital. It relies heavily on the combined experience of Inca team members in software development, finance, and intelligence. Unlike other attempts to aggregate CBDC information, our Factbook is…