The Bank of England could have "its own Bitcoin-style digital currency" this year, according to the country's specialized media. The bank of more than three hundred years established a research unit in 2015 to study the linkage of a state-backed cryptographic to the pound sterling, and already seems to be a breakthrough.
Venezuela has its Petro. Russia is looking at a cryptoruble. Could there be a Britcoin? A Ukoin ?. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney reportedly told a Select Treasury Committee before Christmas that he had held talks with other central banks about the launch of digital currency, according to Mr. Mendick.
Governor Carney, 52, is the first non-British to hold that position at the Bank of England. Former governor of the Bank of Canada, he also spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs. A few days ago, Mr. Carney confirmed that bitcoin is an "area of active interest" and seemed to be very interested in its underlying mechanism for the delivery of decentralized distributed ledger. Without worrying about its retail potential, he told British lawmakers, "You do not end up with those risks of financial stability, you get benefits of financial stability. And you save a lot of computational energy intensity. "
He went on to describe the Bank of England's study of Bitcoin as "quite active in it, but we are also disciplined. If we're going to apply something to the core of the system, it's going to need to meet the five sigma quality rating. "
With the meetings continuing at the beginning of next year, he confirmed "I have participated in discussions with the main Central Banks on this issue of a digital currency supported by the Central Bank. And during the summer, the Bank of England used blockchain technology as a test to see if it could be used as a settlement between the Central Banks. It was a success. The underlying technology is really quite interesting. We are working with him in the Bank of England, "he explained to the Select Committee of the Treasury.
In the spring of last year, the Bank of England commissioned Dr. George Danezis of University College London to design a cryptocurrency with support assumed by the state. RS Coin was born and seemed to add efficiencies associated with automation in regard to banking purposes: central banks could easily control the supply of money at a given time and could obviously determine the amount of money in circulation.
Although Mr. Carney probably believes that the possible Bank of England digital token would be used only among the Central Banks, The Telegraph reports that "a research unit created by the Bank is studying the possible introduction of a cryptocurrency linked to the pound sterling. " It is difficult to imagine traditional retail banks that allow this to happen, since it would surely be their death. A world of frictionless transactions and clicks of fingers to buy houses, cars, etc. it is not something that the legacy bank can survive.