The email inboxes of European Central Bank policy makers were pinged on Monday with an unusual gift from one of their colleagues -- the world’s first collectible digital coin
LBCOIN, as it’s known, arrived to Governing Council members as a link
to an e-wallet with 6 digital tokens, featuring a portrait of one of
the 20 signatories of Lithuania’s 1918 declaration of independence. They
now have 24 hours to accept the gift and activate the coin.
“I’m curious how popular this is going to be among Governing
Council members”, Vitas Vasiliauskas, Lithuania’s central bank governor,
said in an interview. “I’ve asked for feedback.”
The experiment opens a new chapter in the euro zone’s
debate on how to respond to the advent of digital currencies that
threaten to upend the financial system. ECB President Christine Lagarde
said last week that the institution will soon discuss whether or not the
region needs to create one of its own.
Concurrently,
euro-area finance chiefs are also trying to devise a regime to control
digital currencies and keep private initiatives such as Facebook Inc.’s
Libra project from threatening financial stability.
LBCOIN’s
ambitions are modest by comparison. Users that activate the tokens can
then trade among themselves to built a specific set, which can then be
exchanged for a credit card-sized physical silver coin with a nominal
value of 19.18 euros.
Before sending the coin to his colleagues, Vasiliauskas ran a
demonstration of the LBCOIN at last week’s Governing Council meeting to
show them how it works. The project is based on blockchain technology
and took his team almost three years to complete, he said.
“We’re
the first to issue” such a coin, he said. “The whole experience gave us
ample possibilities to comprehend the technology.”... more at Bloomberg
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