Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das said he expects the e-rupee Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot to achieve 1 million retail users by the end of this month. The news comes after early indications suggested the e-ruppe had failed to gain traction last year. The e-rupee pilot program consists of two components: a wholesale or interbank element, which was launched on Nov. 1, 2022, and a retail component that went live on Dec. 1, 2022. Circle, the issuer of USD Coin (USDC,) is carefully monitoring emerging crypto markets across Asia. There’s “enormous demand” for U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins in emerging markets, and “Asia is really central to that,” CEO Jeremy Allaire told Bloomberg. Therefore, “Asia is a huge area of focus for us,” he said. Specifically, Circle is keeping an eye on regulatory developments in Hong Kong – which aims to establish itself as a crypto hub. Hong Kong approved retail crypto trading on June 1, marking a significant step forward in achieving this goal. Institutions from the traditional world of finance dipped their toes in crypto long before FTX hit rock bottom last November. But now, as the SEC circles the largest two centralized exchanges left standing, traditional finance (or TradFi, as it's been nicknamed in the industry) appears poised to gain ground—and possibly market share. Some experts say all financial roads in the U.S., no matter how nascent, eventually lead to Wall Street. SAP recently announced the launch of an experimental Digital Currency Hub to enable companies to trial cross border payments for business transactions using blockchain-based stablecoins. For now users can trial using Circle’s USDC and EUROC stablecoins to pay international invoices, but only on a test blockchain network with play money. It’s widely known that cross border payments are slow, unpredictable and expensive. In contrast stablecoin payments are final within minutes and can be very cheap. That’s provided you use a network with low gas fees. SAP believes two things hold back businesses from using blockchain payments. The first is the volatility of cryptocurrencies which is addressed by (some) stablecoins. And the second is a lack of connectivity to accounting systems. We’d argue there’s a third. Payment recipients need to be willing to accept stablecoins and have the ability to receive them.