BIS and Three Central Banks Successfully Complete CBDC Experiment Using DeFi Networks

The global central bank umbrella organization has successfully completed a cross-border trading experiment using central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) technology.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) worked with the central banks of France, Singapore and Switzerland to test the effectiveness of cross-border trading and settlement of “wholesale” CBDCs (referred to as wCBDCs) between simulated financial institutions, according to a BIS press release.

Banks use wCBDCs for the settlement of wholesale payments, as opposed to retail CBDCs, which are offered to the general public for payments, according to the European Central Bank.

Dubbed “Project Mariana,” the BIS experiment used hypothetical euro, Singapore dollar and Swiss franc wCBDCs, as well as a common technical token standard provided by a public blockchain to facilitate the exchanges between the currencies.

Project Mariana also used bridges to transfer the wCBDCs and an automated market maker (AMM) for trades.

Explains the BIS,

“For Project Mariana, the AMM pooled the liquidity of the hypothetical euro, Singapore dollar and Swiss franc wCBDCs with innovative algorithms enabling spot FX transactions to be priced and executed automatically and settled immediately. These protocols could be used by the next generation of financial market infrastructures facilitating cross-border trading and settlement between financial institutions.”

The BIS cautions that Project Mariana was “purely experimental” and doesn’t mean that any of the countries involved actually have plans to issue wCBDCs or utilize DeFi technology.

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