The Digital Pound Foundation has been set up in the UK to support the Central Bank Digital Currency (or CBDC). The Digital Pound Foundation is an independent organization, formed by a group of professionals from the private sector.
Summary
Digital Pound Foundation and the CBDC in the UK
According to reports, the Digital Pound Foundation was launched today by a group of founding members as an independent forum to support the implementation of CBDC in the UK, the digital pound.
In essence, the Foundation will conduct research, advocacy, hands-on exploratory projects and multi-stakeholder collaboration in the design, development, implementation and deployment of the Digital Pound.
Once the model for developing the CBDC is in place, the Foundation believes that the UK can enable a transition to a digital, innovative and inclusive economy and society.
In this regard, Digital Pound Foundation chairman Jeremy Wilson said:
“Technology is transforming human interaction and money must adapt to that. The world has become a global laboratory realising the benefits of a new form of money. The social ramifications of this shift will affect everyone. The Digital Pound Foundation seeks to support the UK in bringing that about for the benefit of all”.
Digital Pound Foundation: who are the members and partners?
The original members of the Digital Pound Foundation are, among many others, Jeremy Wilson, Jannah Patchay, Lee Schneider (Ava Labs), Victoria Thompson, Phil Kenworthy, Jim Ford and Melanie Budden.
Other members and associates include Accenture, Avalanche, Billon Group, CGI, Electroneum, Quant and Ripple.
Not only that, in collaboration, the Foundation has partners such as Herbert Smith Freehills and The Realization Group.
Leveraging frontier technology, all these names will lend their support to create a robust and resilient digital payment infrastructure from which programmable money and more inclusive payment services can be developed, including with the public sector.
Digital Pound Foundation and the Bank of England
The launch of the Digital Pound Foundation comes just a couple of weeks after the news that the Bank of England (BoE) is also interested in creating a CBDC.
In fact, the BoE seems to have decided to organize a forum where all the major tech companies such as Google, Amazon, PayPal, Oracle, IBM and Spotify will participate.
In this way, the BoE could have its own digital currency, without criticizing Bitcoin anymore. Not by chance, the governor of the BoE himself, Andrew Bailey had stated that cryptocurrencies had no intrinsic value.
