42  Blockchain

• The Bank of England published a discussion paper on New

Forms of Digital Money and Summarises Responses to the 2020

Discussion Paper on Central Bank Digital Currency. The Bank

of England accepted feedback until 7 September 2021 on the

paper. Paper link: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/paper/2021/

new-forms-of-digital-money.

• The European Central Bank (ECB) published a report on the digital

euro on 10 October 2020. This report (https://www.ecb.europa.eu/

paym/digital_euro/report/html/index.en.html) examines the issuance

of a CBDC or a digital euro from the perspective of a Eurosystem.

• On 14 July 2021, the governing council of the ECB decided to launch

the investigation phase of a digital euro project.

• The Central Bank of The Bahamas launched a Sand Dollar (https://

www.sanddollar.bs) as a CBDC nationwide on 20 October 2020 and

became the world’s first country to adopt CBDC. Sand Dollar is the

digital version of the Bahamas dollar (B$).

• The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) officially launched its CBDC

(project named Project Bakong) on 28 October 2020. Its blockchain-

based payment and money transfer platform will help promote the use

of local currency over the US dollar.

• The People Bank of China released a paper in July 2021 about

the CBDC. China has already started trials of digital Yuan across

Mainland China and also trying cross-border use of digital Yuan tri-

als in Hong Kong.

• The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) launched a global chal-

lenge for retail CBDC solutions (called Global CBDC Challenge) on

28 June 2021 (https://www.mas.gov.sg/news/media-releases/2021/

mas-partners-imf-world-bank-and-others-to-launch-global-chal-

lenge-for-retail-cbdc-solutions). MAS launched it in partnership

with International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Asian Development

Bank, United Nations Capital Development Fund, United Nations

High Commission for Refugees, United Nations Development

Programme, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

Development.

There are various other projects that are in some form of pilot maturity.

The full list is shown in Table 1.1.

Potential benefits and challenges related

to CBDC implementation

The following is a list of potential benefits and challenges related to CBDC

implementation and adoption (Table 1.2).