While El Salvador has chosen to integrate Bitcoin into its monetary system, the Banque de France (BdF) continues to work on the creation of a central bank digital currency (MNBC). Thus, it has just conducted an experiment in partnership with Swiss and Luxembourg banks.
The experimentation of a MNBC continues
On June 10, the Banque de France announced the launch of a partnership with the Swiss National Bank and the Bank for International Settlements’ innovation center. The objective was to continue experimenting with the creation of an MNBC.
This project, called “Jura”, aimed to analyze cross-border settlements made via two wholesale MNBCs, in euros and Swiss francs, and a French digitized financial instrument, on a platform using distributed ledger technology.
On June 21, the Banque de France announced the success of a second project, in partnership with the Swiss bank SEBA Bank, Banque Internationale à Luxembourg and LuxCSD. In this experiment, the banks simulated the settlement of listed securities and thus triggered their delivery, all using an MNBC hosted on a public blockchain.
“This experiment demonstrated the possibilities of interactions between conventional and distributed infrastructures and paves the way for further alliances with the objective of benefiting from the opportunities offered by financial assets in a blockchain environment. “
What’s going on under the hood?
Although we have little information about the technological solutions used, the press release refers to the use of a public blockchain as well as the deployment of a smart contract. Therefore, we can assume that it could be Ethereum or Tezos, two of the blockchains already used by the BoF.
The release also refers to the notion of “transaction privacy,” a notion that was dear to Europeans in a survey conducted by the European Central Bank (ECB), in which privacy topped the list of concerns of Europeans in the creation of a crypto-euro.
The Bank of France and the ECB do not seem inclined to accept Bitcoin as El Salvador did. Indeed, both seem committed to the idea of creating a controllable crypto-euro. On this field, it is currently China that is the most advanced with its crypto-yuan.
