Local government is rejecting reports which suggest that they have partnered with a private company to develop a national cryptocurrency for the British Virgin Islands.
A number of reports and social media postings have claimed in recent times that government had entered into a partnership with a cryptocurrency company named LIFElabs.
The Office of the Premier has since released a response which stated: “The government of the British Virgin Islands has been receiving proposals and expressions of interest from numerous international firms that would like to make the territory their base of operations, or simply to trade and offer their services in the territory. One such company is LifeLabs.io, which is in the cryptocurrency business.”
“Based on presentations made by LIFElabs, the company intends to offer a product with the letters “BVI” in the brand name. This, however, does not mean that this particular product has been developed by or in collaboration with the Government of
the Virgin Islands as a national currency, nor that it will be adopted as the territory’s national currency. Any such statement or inference is absolutely untrue,” the Office of the Premier further said.
Government also rejected reports which suggested that the national cryptocurrency will be replacing the current national currency of the BVI, which is the US dollar.
“Contrary to those media reports, the government of
the Virgin Islands is not in the process of developing or launching its own national cryptocurrency, neither by itself nor in partnership with any other entity, to replace the US dollar with a digital currency,” the Office of the Premier said.
Following a recent BVI Digital Economy Symposium which was held on December 3, LIFElabs took to the social media platform Twitter and indicated that they were in a partnership with the BVI government.
The post stated: “LIFElabs announces BVI~LIFE™ a digital currency for the betterment of the British Virgin Islands. At an event hosted by Andrew
Fahie, Premier of the BVI, the partnership on the rollout of the #stablecoin was announced.”