R3 report: CAD-Coin versus FED-Coin

As mentioned in a post last month, central bank digital currency (CBDC) has become an increasingly discussed topic and there are now at least a dozen central banks examining, and in some cases publicly discussing, the implications of creating or backing one.

At R3, we are working with the Bank of Canada, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on CBDC-related projects, along with other efforts yet to be announced.

There are roughly two different models for CBDC that are commonly conflated. The first is “The CAD-coin Model” (note: it is not an actual coin), where a central bank issues a currency against some of its assets.  The second model is popularly known as “Fedcoin”, where a central bank issues a new type of currency that becomes a liability on its balance sheet.

Last month we published a paper covering the Fedcoin model.  Today we are publishing the R3 “CAD-coin” paper by Rod Garratt, who is a member of our academic advisory board and worked on Project Jasper (the name for “CAD-coin”).

The paper was originally released to our members in November of last year.

Here is a link to Garratt’s paper.  CoinDesk got a first look.