Banque de France along with HSBC tested a use case for #wholesale #cdbc with the assets being exchanged on different blockchain networks. One was on Hyperledger Fabric and the other on R3‘s #corda. IBM Research‘s “Weaver interoperability” tool was used for achieving the interoperability.
I believe this is very interesting and potentially groundbreaking. Any #assetclass that is stored digitally uses some sort of underlying #blockchain technology / #distributedledger. These may include #securites, #digitalbonds #digitalcurrencies, #cryptocurrencies, #nfts. #nfts in itself are going nuts with the variety of assets you can store, transfer and exchange on the network, art, real estate etc.
Most of these use a different #blockchain #ledger , for example, #bitcoin uses a different leadger then say an #ethereum, in the future various #CDBC will also have a different sort of leader. This is a basic problem that the financial industry has been facing for a long time, “lack of common standards and operating protocols “.
I have noticed two types of approach being used in the industry to solve this problem ;
* First is a concept where all the assets that need to be exchanged, either via DvP(delivery vs payments, securities use case) or PvP(payment vs payment, foreign currency use case) are on the same #ledger. Citi has been advocating a similar concept called “Regulated liabilities network” around this approach.
* The other way is to find a way to facilitate #ledger #interoperability (ledger interoperability), where the assets can remain on different types of ledgers, but still be transferred, exchanged seamlessly. This is similar to what HSBC with Banque de France has demonstrated.
Consolidation (of ledgers on one platform) as a concept is very romantic 🙂 but very difficult to achieve even within a domestic ecosystem unless mandated by regulations(#democratization of financial services is the underlying idea here). Considering this ledger interoperability might just be a better way or may be at least a stepping stone onto something more sustainable.