The European and French public authorities must accelerate the creation of a "digital euro" so as not to fall behind the Chinese yuan or Facebook's private currency project, said Monday the Concorde Foundation.

This liberal-inspired think tank was speaking as part of a report on blockchain technology, written in collaboration with the public bank Bpifrance and Havas Blockchain.

The "blockchain" is a computer protocol, whose best-known form is bitcoin, the cryptoasset that has just returned to its value records after a crash at the end of 2017.

It makes it possible to create tamper-proof computer objects, which can be exchanged throughout the planet thanks to the Internet.

Based on this technology, "the European Central Bank (ECB) must accelerate the implementation of a digital euro in a context where Libra", the cryptocurrency project launched by Facebook "is capable of becoming a private central bank, and where China launches a crypto-yuan with global ambitions," the foundation said.

It advocates the creation of a "central bank digital currency for wholesale payments" (interbank payments and payment of large amounts), in particular to allow the lowering of transaction costs.

It also supports the creation of a "retail central bank digital currency", which Mr. Everybody could hold and use for his current payments.

This electronic euro could also be "programmable", thanks to the properties of the blockchain: for example, the ECB could issue electronic euros to be used in a given time and place, to help a population in difficulty.

The Concorde Foundation also recalls in its report the many projects for the use of the blockchain outside cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain is thus experimented in industry (agri-food, luxury, health, automotive...) to "trace" products thanks to a digital certificate accompanying the product from the producer to the consumer.

It is also experienced in simplifying and streamlining the exchange of financial securities, energy production certificates, or administrative certificates.

To accelerate these experiments considered promising, the report suggests that Europe "strengthens the financing" of blockchain projects, to bring itself up to the level of China and the United States, whose investment funds have already bet 20 times more on this technology.

Blockchain technology must be listed by name in the portfolio of a European Commissioner, the report also states.