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The Bank of Ghana concluded its first central bank digital currency (CBDC) hackathon. The event involved ten teams developing eCedi solutions deployed on Hedera's public DLT, using EMTECH's Beyond Cash digital currency solution. KPMG participated as a service provider on a pro bono basis, establishing the competition criteria and supervising the event. The hackathon participants included developers, banks and fintechs. https://www.bog.gov.gh/speeches/governors-opening-remarks-at-ecedi-hackathon-awards-dinner/

"Crunchfish was a finalist for its innovation Digital Cash on non-mobile devices, in the global hackathon "HARBINGER 2021 - Innovation for Transformation", organized by RBI, the Reserve Bank of India. The overall objective of the hackathon was to identify and enable innovations with the potential to transform the digital payments landscape. Crunchfish participated for the problem statement - Non Mobile Digital Payment Solutions."

In December 2023, EMTECH successfully delivered a CBDC Hackathon as a strategic pilot for the Bank of Ghana's e-Cedi project. After receiving 88 applications, the Bank of Ghana ultimately selected 10 participants who onboarded a dedicated hackathon platform, and received Institutional Wallets and 1,000 BYDC-eCedi tokens from the central bank to prototype various solutions. They were then granted access to pre-built BYDC-eCedi APIs which eased the technical integration, as well as standardized how and who can create wallets for end users or how to transact with the tokens. All transactions were performed using Hedera's token and public ledger services using an ERC-20 token standard. This delivered transparency in transactions, plus the benefit of protecting user information.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched the HaRBInger 2023 hackathon that includes retail CBDC use cases. These include the disbursal of social benefits, and offline usage where the wallets must be able to independently verify the authenticity of transactions without communicating with the server during the transactions, while mitigating the risk of double spending. Registration runs from February 22, with proposals due by March 24. The first prize is Rupees 4 million ($48,000), with winners to be announced mid-August. https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=55218

The BIS Innovation Hub and SWIFT announced the three winners of the ISO 20022 hackathon, which invited teams to build and showcase solutions that enhance cross-border payments, using the ISO 20022 standard for payments messages and application programming interfaces (APIs).

Bank of Ghana (BoG) in collaboration with EMTECH has launched an eCedi hackathon, to provide opportunities for Fintechs, developers and innovators to design innovative solutions that explore various use cases of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The event is set to run for 12 weeks, during which innovators will brainstorm to come up with solutions to address financial inclusion challenges in Ghana. The proposed innovations are expected to leverage eCedi tokens and APIs to prototype solutions or develop tools that address various use cases.

Barclays will host the "CBDC Hackathon 2022" on September 27 and 28, 2022. It will consist of a series of coding challenges that will simulate the use of central bank digital currency (CDBC) and commercial bank money. Teams of four will develop coding solutions to multiple challenges including connecting to Barclays simulation of central and commercial bank application programming interfaces (APIs). The tasks will be drawn from the Bank of England's CBDC platform model.

The Central Bank of Bahrain, in cooperation with the Bahrain Economic Development Board, Bank ABC, ila Bank, BENEFIT, National Bank of Bahrain and Bahrain Islamic Bank launched FinHub 973, the first comprehensive digital fintech lab in the region. FinHub 973 will enable financial institutions to organize virtual hackathons and challenges to accelerate innovation and business growth. The platform will also provide content on the fintech sector financial and the relevant laws and regulations in the Kingdom of Bahrain, through an interactive chatbot.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) announced the three winners of the G20 TechSprint challenge. The hackathon-style competition was launched in April 2020 to highlight the potential for technology to resolve regulatory compliance (regtech) and supervisory (suptech) challenges. The winners, chosen by an independent panel of experts, addressed one or more of its three problem topics. FNA won the dynamic information-sharing category for their solution FNA Platform for Dynamic Information Sharing and Real-Time Analytics, Tookitaki won in the monitoring and surveillance category for their solution Crypto-currency AML Typology Repository Management and ISDA-REGnosys won the regulatory reporting challenge for their solution Consistent Regulatory Reporting via the Common Domain Model.

PayPal is exploring the launch of its own stablecoin as part of its cryptocurrency push. Evidence of the company's exploration into building a stablecoin was first discovered in PayPal's app by developer Steve Moser. Hidden code and images show work on what is dubbed a "PayPal Coin." The code indicates such a coin would be backed by the U.S. dollar. A PayPal spokeswoman said that the images and code inside of the PayPal app stemmed from a recent internal hackathon.

The G20 and the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub launched the G20 TechSprint Initiative to highlight the potential for new technologies to resolve regulatory compliance (RegTech) and supervision (SupTech) challenges. The BIS Innovation Hub published high-priority RegTech/SupTech operational problems and invited private firms to develop innovative technological solutions. The problem statements identify challenges in regulatory reporting, analytics, and monitoring and supervision, and have been developed from submissions received from Financial Stability Board member jurisdictions.

Ripple announced the 15 winners of Phase I of its CBDC Innovate Challenge who will move forward to Phase II, where they will begin building, refining, and developing their applications. The goal of CBDC Innovate 2023 is to build or update a fintech or payments solution utilizing Ripple's CBDC solutions. In Phase I applicants ideated applications on the public XRP Ledger. In Phase II the 15 finalists, including WhisperCash, will build on Ripple's Private CBDC Platform.