Davos, Switzerland: Today at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, the Government of Bermuda announced their plans to transform Bermuda into the world’s first fully onchain national economy with support from Circle and Coinbase.
Circle and Coinbase intend to provide their digital asset infrastructure and enterprise tools to the Government of Bermuda, local banks, insurers, small and medium-sized businesses, and consumers. The companies also plan to support nationwide digital finance education and technical onboarding.
An onchain economy means using digital assets as an everyday financial infrastructure. For a country like Bermuda, a highly entrepreneurial economy with thousands of local businesses, traditional payment rails are expensive and restrictive. Being classified alongside Caribbean and other island jurisdictions, onshore payment processors, and local fiat banking rails drive up fees and squeeze already-thin merchant margins. Digital finance provides an opportunity for a new model.
With USDC, merchants can accept fast, low-cost, dollar-denominated payments. There are now multiple live examples in the Bermudian market, demonstrating how onchain digital payments allow individuals to transact locally, support economic activity, and meet compliance obligations in a modern, efficient way.
