Digital euro - what's behind it
When will the digital euro arrive? And what exactly is behind the digital currency?
The European Central Bank (ECB) plans to decide in mid-2021 whether and in what form the digital euro should be introduced.1 ECB President Christine Lagarde expects that citizens in the European Union will already be able to shop with the digital currency in five years, as the central bank chief announced in January 2021. The digital euro could make payment transactions easier for consumers and companies.
Why is the topic of the digital euro becoming increasingly important in Europe?
Central banks' own digital currency as an answer to Bitcoin and Libra? The European Central Bank (ECB) wants to introduce the digital euro to protect the stability of the euro against cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or the Facebook currency "Diem" (originally Libra) as well as digital currencies of other countries, thus strengthening Europe's digital sovereignty.
Other central banks are already much further ahead than Europe in terms of digital central bank currencies, so-called "Central Bank Digital Currency" (CBDC). China has already put the digital yuan into circulation in selected pilot regions in 2020. The Swedish central bank has launched the "e-krona" pilot project, which is to be extended until 2022, according to media reports.