Panetta Says ECB Weighing Blockchain Use for Central Bank Money

The European Central Bank is considering incorporating a similar technology to that which underlies Bitcoin as it modernizes wholesale access to central bank money, Executive Board member Fabio Panetta said.

So-called distributed ledger technologies -- pioneered by cryptocurrencies -- are already being experimented with by large parts of the financial industry, and are likely to see a “significant uptake” going forward, he told a conference in Frankfurt on Monday. The ECB is considering their use as it upgrades it payments and settlements infrastructure.

“We are assessing the potential of distributed ledger technology and the extent to which it could improve ...