Facing with competition from Bitcoin, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and central banks are fighting back. They want to accelerate the launch of state digital currencies and payment systems for the general public, via blockchain technology.

The causes of this acceleration of "CBDCs" are not only technological and servicial for citizen-users. While the notoriety and price of bitcoin, the oldest cryptocurrency, has risen sharply during the Covid-19 crisis, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) - considered the central bank of central banks - also intends to accelerate on these exchanges issued via the decentralized technology of the blockchain, for several reasons. It is a question of accelerating to promote cryptocurrencies intended this time for the general public. At the beginning of 2020, the BIS reported that 80% of them were working on the subject but only 10% of these institutions were at the pilot project stage at the end of 2019, according to a survey of 66 central banks in developed and emerging countries. Even the Banque de France has done so by launching a call for projects in 2020 with the aim of creating a "digital euro". On June 18, the central authority even indicated that it had carried out its first financial transaction in cryptocurrency.

The goal is to better control trade, while world trade is now more than 80% dollar-denominated. Also, the Middle Kingdom has recently banned its banks from processing these transactions in cryptocurrencies. The challenge of monetary power If central banks are accelerating, the interest is primarily technological in order to develop their services. In a study published in May 2021, the cryptocurrency management platform Kraken cited its motivations, questioned by the BIS and summarized in a diagram. Efficiency and optimization of payments, international money transfers, solidity of the system... By mastering these new technologies, central banks, under the leadership of the BIS, would also be able to act more quickly in regulating these exchanges.