As recently reported, the Bank of England (BoE) has made significant progress in its central bank-issued digital currency (CBDC) program. Tom Mutton, BoE’s director of fintech, recently shared The privacy of the CBDC and why the central bank consider other options other than blockchain as core technology.
At a recent meeting of technologists held by the BoE to discuss the design of the digital currency, Mutton said there was open disagreement over which record should be used for the CBDC. For this reason, bank aims to experiment with different ledger technologies, including blockchain.
Plans to develop the digital pound, called Britcoin, were first proposed in April 2021 when the UK Treasury Department and the BoE set up a joint task force to create the UK CBDC. Then, in February 2023, the bank issued an advisory outlining the digital pound project.
Currently, the BoE and Her Majesty’s Treasury await clarification. feedback stakeholders and technologists in the proposed CBDC project. Consultation is open until 30 June.
lamb said:

“We want to be compatible with distributed ledger business models in the private sector, but we are not convinced that distributed ledgers offer greater efficiency than traditional ledgers.”

Cointelegraph reached out to the BoE to ask what other ledger technologies it is considering. However, the BoE did not provide any response at the time of publication.
In addition to the discussion of ledger technology, Mutton also touched on the issue of CBDC confidentiality, focused on providing privacy to users without collecting personal data. He said the bank will focus on providing the infrastructure, while private operators will be responsible for innovation.

“No data will be shared with the Bank of England, we will know what transactions were made but we will not have data on the person who made them. The wallet provider will have user data but will not have access to transaction data.” .

Mutton said that neither the BoE nor the government will have access to user data, and that even wallet providers with limited access to that data will need to obtain user consent on what data they can store. Focusing on retail distribution, BoE previously said the digital sterling coexist with private stablecoins.

Translation of Walter Rizzo