On 9th May, the Bank of England’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) head, Tom Mutton ruled out the possibility of security issues from digital versions of the Pound or Britcoin. According to a report, Mutton has clarified that there’ll be no connection between the digital pound with cryptocurrencies existing currently. Also, Britcoin will not be exchangeable against cryptocurrencies.
According to reports, Tom Mutton while speaking at the Financial Times’ Crypto and Digital Assets Conference, said privacy and anonymity are two different things and they shouldn’t be used as synonyms. Additionally, he clarified that, when a person is anonymous, no information about them is publicly accessible, whereas when a person is private, some kind of control over their data is implied. The Bank of England (BoE) never sought to make digital pounds anonymous, says the CBDC head. For those who are not aware the United Kingdom has high crimes related to finance but privacy always has remained a top priority.
Financial crimes including cryptocurrency scams, hacks, and illegal crypto ATMs are widely prevalent in the United Kingdom. While emphasizing privacy, Tom Mutton said, “There’s no incentive and no reason for us to offer a digital pound, unless it has the very highest standards of privacy”. It might provide some satisfaction to the customers who were curious about the workability of the upcoming digital pound. Also, the Bank of England is ready to open consultation on “some level of shielding” at low-level transactions.
Tom Mutton also rejected the claim that any private sector digital money is more private than the digital pound would be. According to the BoE’s CBDC head, all electronic payments leave a data footprint. The main issue is where data go whether it is in safe hands or someone misusing it.
A few days back, at the Citi Digital Money Symposium, the Bank of England, Katie Fortune shared her views on the benefits of CBDCs and they intermingled with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Additionally, CBDCs might potentially speed up, reduce the cost of, and improve the security of transactions, making it easier to conduct business online. Also, the digital pound will not be interoperable with cryptocurrencies as they currently exist because they do not come under the category of money.
