The BIS, the Swiss National Bank and SIX announced the successful completion of Project Helvetia, a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) experiment.
The project explored the technological and legal feasibility of transferring digital assets through:
The initiative demonstrated the feasibility and legal robustness of both alternatives in a near-live setup.
The BIS said in its press release:
"However, comparing them reveals benefits and challenges. A wholesale CBDC has potential advantages when settling digital assets. Yet it would raise major policy and governance hurdles. Linking existing systems to new DLT platforms would avoid many of these problems, but would forgo the potential benefits of full integration. Project Helvetia explored a wholesale CBDC, restricted to banks and other financial institutions. A retail or general purpose CBDC would address different use cases and have very different policy implications."
Further work will now be undertaken: first to understand better the practical complexities and policy implications of wholesale CBDC as well as exploring different design choices that allow for trade-offs between risks and benefits.