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The Wholesale digital tokens report describes the potential innovations and design questions associated with digital tokens that could be used to settle wholesale, or large-value, payments, made possible by new technologies such as blockchain, or distributed ledger technology.
Private developers are exploring several applications for wholesale digital tokens. While these could be developed simply to make payments, many initiatives also seek to provide the payment leg of tokenised securities and FX transactions, where a token represents a share, bond or other financial asset.
The report only covers variants of digital tokens issued by identifiable issuers and denominated in sovereign currency. It is not directed at so-called "stablecoins" for retail payments.
The report describes the critical elements of wholesale digital token arrangements and discusses some potential design choices. It also includes a non-exhaustive list of questions that token developers may need to consider. Important considerations include availability, issuance and redemption, access, underlying assets/funds and claims, transfer mechanism, privacy and regulatory compliance, and interoperability.