The British regulator and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are conducting a 12-month joint study on the feasibility of launching a British state digital currency.
On March 25, the Bank of England posted a statement of cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the development and issuance of the UK’s state digital currency. MIT’s Digital Currency Research Unit (DCI) has agreed on a twelve-month research project that aims to uncover the pros and cons of digitizing the British pound. Specifically, the team will look at “potential technical challenges, trade-offs, opportunities, and risks associated with developing a government digital currency system.”
The document clarifies that a joint partnership project to study the opportunities and risks of the digital pound sterling between the British supervisory authority and an American university does not guarantee the launch of the UK state digital currency.
“This work is focused on technology research and is not intended to develop a valid digital currency of the Central Bank. No decision has yet been made on whether to introduce a CBDC in the UK, which will be a major national infrastructure project,” explains the regulator.
The Bank of England and its governor, Andrew Bailey, have always been among the most vocal critics of the crypto industry. They warned that investors should be prepared to lose all their money if they invest in bitcoin. However, so far the regulator has not made big bets on the state digital currency. In this, the position of the Bank of England is very different from many other central banks, which have expressed significant dissatisfaction with bitcoin and have shown great initiative in launching a state-owned digital currency.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has recently shown more and more interest in the study of the state digital currency of the Central Bank. The Bank of Canada (BC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently announced a collaboration to explore the prospects for a digital Canadian dollar.
