Digital Euro: A (Digital) Symbol of Progress and Integration in Europe

Abstract

The emergence of crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ether exposed a number of advantages that these digital assets based on distributed ledger technology (DLTs) can offer. As cash is becoming less and less popular in the eurozone, the European Central Bank (ECB) is currently looking at the scenario of creating a digital euro as a kind of central bank money that may be used by the general public. DLT may be used to tokenize central bank money via digital currencies (CBDCs) issued by central banks, as well as to digitally represent bank deposits. The purpose of this article is to analyse what are the solutions for the future digitization of the monetary and financial systems and if current CBDC projects and prototypes, including those by the Chinese and Swedish central banks and the attempts of the ECB, have the chance to succeed with or without DLT.