Marshall Islands is Launching National Cryptocurrency Through Physical Blockchain Notes

The world’s first decentralized digital national currency, The Marshall Islands Sovereign (SOV) is going to be issued in the form of physical notes.

In a press release published on January 28, it was confirmed that Tangem, a company that produces blockchain smart card wallets, will be printing the physical notes for the country’s digital currency.

For the first time, a sovereign nation will be issuing a legal digital tender to be used a national currency. The Republic of Marshall Islands will add the SOV as a newly issued digital currency to its list of recognized national currencies. The related press release said:

“Once issued, SOV will join the U.S. dollar as the official legal tender of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI).”

The Sovereign will retain the benefits that are generally a part of Blockchain technology and its applications and will allow rapid, cheap, and global value exchange without running the risk of corruption.

In a bid to ensure that all citizens of the Marshall Islands have equal access to their digital currency Tangem has joined forces with the bodies behind the SOV. Thanks to the offline nature of SOV, people who do not have access to the internet will face no problems moving their digital holdings.

Supplementing this feature will be the use of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) as leverage to allow immediate transaction validation of SOV with no transaction fees involved. Additionally, Tangem’s banknotes will minimize the technical infrastructure burden on the Marshall Islands as they facilitate off-chain physical circulation of the SOV among all holders.

According to the press release, each Tangem card will be a unique physical banknote and the cards will have a Blockchain-powered microprocessor embedded inside that will bring the security offered by Blockchain technology as an additional layer of safety over the one already offered by traditional banknotes.

The Co-founder of Tangem, Andrey Kurennykh was enthusiastic about the company’s new project and said:

“We are excited to partner with the Republic of the Marshall Islands to do something that has never been done before: issue a digital currency as official legal. As the IMF has noted, the world is moving towards the widespread adoption of digital currencies, and we are excited to support the birth of the new global digital economy.”