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.
