South Korea Completes First Phase of CBDC Trial

Today the Bank of Korea released a report detailing the first phase of its CBDC trial.

The report noted that the basic features of the CBDC, such as manufacturing, Issuance, and distribution, appeared to “operate normally”. The first phase of the CBDC trial began in August 2021 and finished in December.

The Bank of Korea will test the CBDC for a period of 10 months altogether. The second phase, which will test additional functions such as offline payment and cross-border remittance, began in late December 2021 and will run until June 2022.

Korean CBDC Partner: GroundX

Last year the Bank of Korea partnered with GroundX, the company behind the Klaytn public blockchain, to create the digital version of the won. GroundX is a subsidiary of tech giant Kakao, which is one of the biggest publicly traded Korean companies.

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