Technical paper says blockchain probably isn’t up to the job
The Bank of England and HM Treasury have declared the UK will probably need a digital version of the pound at some point, and commenced a consultation process to advance plans for the currency so the nation is prepared if a decision is taken to greenlight what’s jokingly been called « Britcoin ».
A consultation paper describing the central bank digital currency (CBDC) states that the two abovementioned institutions have – as The Register has reported – already considered Britcoin. Based on those efforts, they « judge that it is likely a digital pound will be needed in the future. »
« It is too early to commit to build the infrastructure for one, but we are convinced that further preparatory work is justified, » the paper states.
A separate digital pound working technology working paper outlines the most Register-adjacent aspects of that work – including the need for a central ledger to store user balances.
In its consideration of how best to build that ledger, the paper’s authors might find themselves irritating blockheads with the following observation:
The technical paper also ponders whether offline payment functionality will be needed to enhance resilience, a desire to integrate with existing payment systems (including peer-to-peer exchanges of physical cash), and programmability features that allow payment services providers and external service interface providers to add functionality to the CBDC.
