Bank of England assembles 30 experts to design the digital pound

The Bank of England (BoE) is assembling 30 experts to design a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Designing the digital pound

According to reports on April 8, the CBDC, dubbed the “Britcoin” or the “digital sterling,” will be a digitized version of the British Pound, the region’s fiat currency. The central bank plans to hire a “digital pound solution architect” and a “digital pound security architect.” 

The solution architect will, among other responsibilities, have to “understand and interpret strategic and policy drivers around CBDC” while also “providing technical guidance, direction, and collaborative leadership to our CBDC technology work.” Meanwhile, the security architect must be vastly experienced in designing and developing secure solutions and thoroughly grasp core foundational cryptography principles.

News of this development is a few weeks after the BoE said they planned to begin designing the CBDC with expectations that it will go out in circulation by 2030. Like the physical pound, the digital pound will be issued by the central bank. It can be spent like any other fiat currency. They stated that the CBDC wouldn’t be a crypto asset. Instead, every digital sterling in circulation will be backed by the government.

A CBDC is necessary

Still, the HM Treasury and the Bank of England are at the exploratory stage and have not stated whether they will proceed with a CBDC. Even so, they have observed the recent trends and, in a statement, said they judge that developing a digital pound would be necessary. Issuing the CBDC, therefore, “is the anchor of confidence” of the United Kingdom’s monetary system.

A consultation and technology working papers about the development of the currency have been released. With these papers out, the central bank is signaling they are ready for the design phase, explaining why they are building a strong workforce, a CBDC Unit.

According to the job application page, the CBDC Unit will be primarily tasked with designing the coin’s architecture. However, they will also be responsible for identifying the opportunities and challenges presented by central bank digital currencies. The team will comb through macroeconomic factors, design angles, and more as they build the basic blocks for Britcoin.