FT Reports that Gaza might be getting its own stablecoin

Officials with the Board of Peace in Gaza Palestine, mandated to oversee postwar Gaza’s reconstruction, are reportedly exploring creating a USD pegged stablecoin to jumpstart the Strip’s economic recovery, as per an article in the Financial Times.

According to the report, the stablecoin project will be led by an Israeli tech entrepreneur called Liran Tancman. Tancman is a veteran of Israel’s intelligence corps who is serving as an unpaid adviser to the Board of Peace and has been working with senior US officials on Gaza-related projects over the past year.

Involved as well will be the members of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the Palestinian technocratic body that operates under the Board of Peace, and the office of Nickolay Mladenov, the former UN official who is the board’s high representative for the territory.
“This will not be a ‘Gaza Coin’ or a new Palestinian currency, but a means to allow Gazans to transact digitally,” a person familiar with the project told the FT.

The Strip’s banks and financial institutions have since been battered, and those who have access to shekels often charge huge fees for the currency’s use. The idea, according to the source, is to circumvent those challenges.

Another source told the FT that the project was launched in order to “dry Gaza from cash so Hamas can’t generate any.” Those familiar with the project denied that it would seek to separate the Palestinians in Gaza from those in the West Bank, where Palestinians also transact in shekels.

One issue with the implementation of the stablecoin plan could be the state of cellular networks in Strip, where Israel has only allowed slow 2G service. Tancman told the Board of Peace, at its inaugural meeting earlier this month, that the network will be “upgraded with free, high-speed access” by July.