Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and MIT Release Central Bank Digital Currency Research and Open-Source Code

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have jointly published the initial findings of their central bank digital currency (CBDC) research. They also published the open-source code for the CBDC project.

Boston Fed and MIT Publish Initial Findings of Their CBDC Research

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Digital Currency Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) released the initial findings of their central bank digital currency (CBDC) research on Thursday.

This research is separate from the digital dollar research conducted by the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve also recently published its long-awaited CBDC report.

The collaboration between the Boston Fed and MIT, known as Project Hamilton, “focuses on technological experimentation and does not aim to create a usable CBDC for the United States,” they explained. The initiative was announced in 2020.

Boston Fed Executive Vice President and Interim Chief Operating Officer Jim Cunha said, “It is critical to understand how emerging technologies could support a CBDC and what challenges remain,” adding:

This collaboration between MIT and our technologists has created a scalable CBDC research model that allows us to learn more about these technologies and the choices that should be considered when designing a CBDC.

“The work produced one code base capable of handling 1.7 million transactions per second,” the project whitepaper details.

The researchers also released the code for Project Hamilton, OpenCBDC. The open-source code is available in github for contributions.

Neha Narula, director of MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, commented: “There are still many remaining challenges in determining whether or how to adopt a central bank payment system for the United States.”

According to the announcement:

In the coming years, the second phase of this partnership will allow Project Hamilton to explore alternative technical designs to improve the already robust privacy, resiliency, and functionality of the technology outlined in the first phase.

What do you think of the Boston Fed and MIT releasing their initial research and open-source code on central bank digital currency? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

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