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Uruguay’s Central Bank (BCU) formally presented rollout of its pioneering digitization of the Uruguayan peso on 3 November 2017. Set now as a pilot program, the bank’s head was careful to remind it “is not a cryptocurrency such as bitcoins,” but “a currency that remains the responsibility of the BCU,”

https://news.bitcoin.com/uruguay-first-in-the-world-to-launch-digital-currency-not-bitcoin-it-stresses/ (https://news.bitcoin.com/uruguay-first-in-the-world-to-launch-digital-currency-not-bitcoin-it-stresses/)

While this is not a project for decentralized currency, I think is great that a Central Bank has jumped into digital currencies.
One thing I believe it will happen is that i.e: merchants will need to adapt their POS systems to digital currency and probably allowing the co-existence of Cryptocurrencies and people getting used to it, I see this as a positive move,though. printing bills is expensive for Uruguay as it´s printed in Casa de la Moneda in Chile..

Uruguay has set the pace for many things throughout history in Southamerica (Women´s voting in the early 1900´s, universal health care, cannabis legalization, abortion legalization among other things). Very proud of my country :)

They may want to change its name but its function will be the same.  So no matter what will be the term or name, it is still a digital currency.

It will be a digital currency indeed, but not like bitcoin or altcoins, as it will be centralized and not mineable..

How could it be a digital currency, but not a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoins? That doesn't even make any sense at all. If it is a digital currency, then it must be like Bitcoins because Bitcoin is also a digital currency. :D

Yes it is a digital currency but no one will be able to mine it and is centralized, so, it´s quite different from bitcoin...

I wonder how they are going to do this and also it is good to see a country like Uruguay doing something so progressive because the African countries are known for being slower to take on new technologies and this is definitely a big exception to that. Glad to see it and hopefully it will be a success and other countries will learn from it and introduce their own cryptocurrencies soon. :)

Just FYI Uruguay is not in Africa....
And as per how they´re gonna do it, read the article and you will know.

It's great how they stressed that it's not Bitcoin. Free publicity, and people know they're different from each other.

While it's in direct competition with Bitcoin for things like online transactions, I think state-backed digital currencies will be good for Bitcoin in the long run. These digital currencies will force governments to upgrade their infrastructure -- better connectivity for merchants and clients alike. That could easily open the door for Bitcoin use, as it pretty much runs on the same infrastructure. I just hope this doesn't mean they'll ban Bitcoin use on the grounds of redundancy.

Quoting as proof that you really said this is great.

If you really have done your homework about BTC and other cryptocurrencies, nothing about a government issued currency is great.

If the Uruguayan government also thinks they can make a BTC replacement by having their currency in a centralized blockchain, then they too have missed the point. All it does is it kills their currency's fungibility.

Singapore is doing something similar apparently. What do y'all think?

http://www.mas.gov.sg/Singapore-Financial-Centre/Smart-Financial-Centre/Project-Ubin.aspx

Then they also miss the point if they think they are doing that to prevent BTC's growth and adoption.

BTC is beyond any law and control. The sooner they accept that, the sooner they realize its true value.

It's great indeed. Have u read the article at least?
There's no intention implied to ban any crypto nor replace, the only thing is
 gonna be replaced are physical bills and coins. Because Uruguay doesn't have a printing/minting facility, Afaik bills are printed in Chile and costs money to print it and transport it. I understand your point, trust me. I'm not a fan of central banks, but as has been pointed out above it could open the doors for regular folks start using crypto, it could be the blueprint for btc and alts become almost mainstream. Do your own research, Uruguay is a small country, in size and population (roughly 3 million ppl) so it could be great testing grounds for bigger economies such as Brazil, Argentina. And Chile.

exactly my point, I don't think they'll try to ban crypto, it's just impossible.

But at the end it is centralized currency so we are not going to use it and since the average person is not using it either then there is no hope that currency is going to be used by anyone, why settle for such a currency when you can get the best crypto in bitcoin, they do not seem to understand that is going to be a lot more difficult to pull that trick on us, we are not going to fall just because it is a digital currency, we are not going to buy it.

Its nice if central banks..decides to jump into the cryptocurrency Market they will for sure have a big influence on genral public..I do think that the interest
of public will genuinely increase in digital currencies and stuff and we can be sure that we will be getting more investors.. banks if instead of opposing this.. cryptocurrency market...if they hop into it.. then.. I think no one can stop bitcoins from existing..
Banks are the biggest threat up until now..and this new nakes me happy since the first step is now taken and for future reference we can think about holding out coins

Sure, let them do so, it ain't gonna affect the world economy by a big margin, but if the economies from Africa who recently adopted dollar as their national currency because of their own being overthrown due to depreciation of their currency, decide to issue crypto currency, it can actually affect the world economy because a lot of raw materials and precious goods are imported from these countries.

Whatever they call it, they got their inspiration from bitcoin and no matter how they want to still make it seems like its their own innovation, the mention of bitcoin in their statement will give bitcoin its due credit because someone who is reading the statement that have not heard about bitcoin will be curios as to why reference is being made to such in a statement that is purely national and with that, one new soul is seeing the light which I doubt he/she will go back to the one they are backing after seeing the goodies and freedom that bitcoin offers to everyone that come across with it and ready to learn new things in the world. My contribution...

I love it! I hope that they will stay transparent on the supply of the coin, it is indeed a great help to minimize the usage of paper but then i want them to stay transparent because it may encourage corruption if you can easily gain the coins, they should have implement Blockchain and a strong hash to stay secure and transparent, Looking forward to this.

Not sure if anyone pays attention to the heading or even the first paragraph, but this has nothing to do with cryptocurrency, let alone blockchain. It's simply a digitization of their national currency. This is really not much different than the electronization of currencies already carried out in most countries in the world. What they're proposing is like a voucher system, where electronic vouchers are redeemed for existing units of peso.

So I really don't see why the article seems to think that countries like Russia will pay any attention to it, since Russia and others are considering blockchain tech for their implementations, with intentions to create a new currency.

i think probably uruguay government inspired from bitcoin and if yes i think they want their project will successfully such as bitcoin development but i was wondering would they will use same technology equal to bitcoin because if those digital currency still lack of interest or there are some issue during use it then i'm pretty sure their project will never beat bitcoin and possibly uruguay people will more likely use bitcoin than their government project

There is nothing great for in something like that if it is done by the central bank of my country. I would rather use fiat instead of that digital currency if it has the same functions and is centralized like fiat. People use Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies because they are not centralized and they run only on networks and no one has any control on them. If i use a digital currency which i know is being watched by someone, why shouldn't i use cash instead of that?
And i think some other countries are also planning for this, but they might have not launched them yet.

Another bitcoin achievement although they is not a bitcoin or maybe this is another altcoin but at least they believed in digital currency and obviously they want to follow the path of bitcoin in which they are hoping that it will help to improve their economy for the welfare of their people. We just hope that this coin will be accepted in the market and hoping that this move will encourage other nations to adopt bitcoin.

I think Uruguay is trying to strike it rich while the iron is hot. I mean the cryptocurrency market has been on a rise in the past few years. For sure, many, if not all, countries have already set their eyes on the probable potential it carries. It is also a good way to earn for the benefit of their people and to improve the market landscape locally. I think this is the same with China's move, which is mainly their motivation on why they strictly regulated bitcoins.

If it's not mineable, then it would just be like any money that none a physical one. Just like holding money in a bank and having a debit card for it, you actually have an asset and money but you don't have the physical paper in your hands. The good thing about it is that it is not open for crimes like robbery or theft. Another one is the government can regulate its use in a more remote practice.

This test of launching digital currency in Uruguay goes beyond the concept of being decentralized, is governed and managed by a State Bank, and this bank is the owner of our wallets would never be our money. So the government really finding ways that our money would still pass through them.

Digital currency is the future and I am happy that a Latin American country is taking a positive step to bring the idea of digital currency in to the mainstream economy. Bitcoin, being decentralised in nature, can't be an ideal choice for any central bank. Instead they are just trying to release a digital version of their own currency where its value will be backed up by Peso and definitely it will not be mineable.

However, I doubt it will be just another representation of a conventional debit card system. It's too early to comment on it but lets just wait for their final idea to take shape.

Exactly, I see most people in here dont´t get it, but that´s just fine.

That's obvious because they stated that their digital currency is not like bitcoin as a cryptocurrencies reflect that they are somehow already know bitcoin and got inspired from it but want to make a new one
which can be taken its control by the government unlike bitcoin which is fully decentralized, I'm really curious how this project could keeping up and the real implementation there, hope that the news will not just stopped here but always continously reporting the update.

That's some awesome move that your country made. Whether it's different from bitcoin because it is decentralized or not mine able. Your country will have "digital currencies" that will stable in the range of prices. that's what i thought, better to be having some problem in the start and become better at it in the end  ;) Awesome News!

But this is the greatest issue with centralized coins, we need to trust that the government does the right thing and we just need to look at Zimbabwe or Venezuela or Argentina to know that this is not the case, even the US suffered from this and this is why they needed to make adjustments to their economy as well in the past, this is why bitcoin was created on the first place so we did not needed to trust anyone to do that for us.