Bank of England mulls CBDC models in technology engagement forum
The Bank of England published the minutes of its first central bank digital currency (CBDC) Technology Forum meeting held on September 28, 2021. The Forum consists of senior stakeholders from industry, civil society and academia to gather strategic input on policy considerations and functional requirements pertaining to the practical challenges of designing, implementing and operating a CBDC. The meeting featured a discussion around alternative “platform” models for CBDC provision. In one model, the Bank would hold a record of every payment amount, and in another, it might just record the gross transactions with payment service providers (PSPs) in a ‘pooled model’. And they discussed a variant of the pooled model to allow delayed net settlement by the PSPs, even though customer payments would be real-time. Some meeting attendees suggested an alternative anonymous cash-like model without either the PSPs or the Bank keeping a ledger. However, other members queried the feasibility of this approach, both in terms of the viability of the technology, and in relation to resilience, and prevention of tampering and “double spending” of CBDC units. [Read more]
The Second U.S. Bitcoin ETF Is Set to Start Trading Friday
The Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy fund will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange on October 22, following the wildly successful debut of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (ticker BITO), which accumulated more than $1.1 billion in assets in just two days of trading. [Read more]
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