Digital pound
The Digital pound (also known as digital sterling or britcoin)[1] is a proposed central bank digital currency from the Bank of England. It is intended to supplement, not replace, cash in the United Kingdom.[1] The value of the digital pound would be the same as cash pound sterling so that £10 of digital pounds would have the same value as a banknote of £10.[1]
It would differ from a cryptocurrency or cryptoasset because it would be created and backed by the Bank of England and the Government of the United Kingdom, rather than by a company or anonymous person or group.[1]
A public consultation on the digital pound lasting four months was announced on 6 February 2023.[2] A final decision on the implementation of a digital pound would be expected around 2025, with consumer usage expected in the late 2020s.[2]
In a March 2024 episode of BBC Radio 4's Money Box, Harriett Baldwin, chair of the UK Parliament's Treasury Select Committee, said a digital pound would not be introduced before 2030, and that people’s holdings would probably be limited to £10,000 as a way of avoiding the possibility of worsening any run on a bank; the European Union was considering a limit of 6,000 euros. In reply to a consultation, the government had said it would not seek to control people’s use of a digital currency but did not say it would not look at the data to see how the money was moving around.[3][4]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "The digital pound". Bank of England. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ a b Elliott, Larry (7 February 2023). "'Britcoin' digital currency could be in use by end of decade". Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - Money Box, The Future of Money and Universal Credit". BBC. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
- ^ "The digital pound: still a solution in search of a problem?" (2023) Treasury Select Committee, December https://committees.parliament.uk/work/6843/the-cryptoasset-industry/publications/