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The Global Forum @ Casa de Campo “The future of money” concluded with an exhortation for the Dominican Republic to assume the reality of the change that constitutes the irruption of digital currencies, with the challenge of establishing regulations. 

The speakers also suggested that the country’s leaders, with the business sector, organized civil society, and public and private entities, talk and be able to channel and guide the transformation process. 

The conclusions of the Forum were read by María Waleska Álvarez, president of Nap del Caribe, and José Frank Almeyda, director of the Americas, Its Global. 

After analyzing the scenarios that are currently being considered regarding the future of money in the Dominican Republic, the United States, and the world in general, experts from the business world and leaders from the financial sector agreed on the need to assess, to regulate and know in-depth, the phenomenon of digital currencies.  

“We have to be able to direct and guide this process. And do it in a more organized way, much more organic than what we have done so far”, were part of the final comments made by Álvarez and Almeyda. 

As a summary of the presentations that made up the Forum, whose introductory panel was headed by the former Dominican president and president of the organizing committee of the event, Dr. Leonel Fernández, Álvarez and Almeyda referred to the need to understand that in order to be more competitive there is to understand the processes that bring transformations, such as those that have generated digital currencies, with their failures and their successes. 

“Understand that technology is a tool, which in the case of digital currencies demands, as in all situations, tolerance, to learn from failures and not shy away from what has to be learned about them,” they pointed out.  

Likewise, they suggested that progress be made in the analysis of these financial mechanisms to establish clear rules, with the necessary social consensus that leaders promote in their different fields of action. 

“Today we are talking about blockchain and cryptocurrencies, tomorrow we will surely talk about something else. So the issue of tolerance for failure is important”, was another final argument, with the addition that “you have to learn fast”.

Álvarez pointed out that these are times in which «paralysis by analysis» must be avoided, echoing the presentations in which he also stressed that a balance must be found, an adequate balance “to which we have been invited in some way in many of dissertations to find those regulations and turn them into clear rules.”

With the approach repeatedly shared during the Forum, they highlighted that part of the secret formula to having a competitive and successful society depends on leadership, which makes us capable, as a society, of having maturity, of having all the actors sitting on the table. 

They highlight the contribution of the Forum 

In this context, Álvarez and Almeyda praised the Forum organized by the Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (Funglode) and its sister institution in the United States, the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD), at the Marina Riverside Center. 

Almeyda recalled that during the pandemic caused by COVID-19, the digital point of view had to be “pushed” because it had to continue to be built as a country. “We found ourselves in the need to digitize processes that were not possible before, or were not wanted or could not be adopted,” he said. 

He stated that during the Forum, what caught his attention the most was the interest in the subject and learning the fact that there was definitely such a crowded audience to learn about the phenomenon. 

“Hopefully there are other discussion spaces of this type. I’m sure you will see it. And that we may have the opportunity to share with people who already have the experience in other latitudes, in other countries, and who help us in the Dominican Republic to implement this technology,” he said.  

Álvarez thanked former president Leonel Fernández and the executive director of Funglode, Marco Herrera, together with the work team that achieved the development of the Forum, for having the vision of creating scenarios “to allow this type of conversation” 

Information courtesy of Global Forum @ Casa de Campo“The future of money” https://funglode.org/