Hong Kong Presents Digital Currency Prototype, Project Aurum

Financial authorities in Hong Kong have unveiled a prototype of the Chinese autonomous territory’s own central bank digital currency called Project Aurum. The two-tier platform features a wholesale interbank and a retail e-wallet system, participants revealed.

Hong Kong to Issue Retail Tokens and Stablecoins as Part of Project Aurum
A collaboration between the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute has produced a prototype of Hong Kong’s upcoming digital currency, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) announced.

Project Aurum is a full-stack, front-end and back-end, central bank digital currency (CBDC) system comprising a wholesale interbank system and a retail e-wallet system, the international financial institution explained in a press release this week.

Participants in Aurum want to launch two different types of digital tokens. The first kind will be an intermediated digital currency while the second one will be a CBDC-backed stablecoin circulated in the interbank system. The BIS remarked:

The latter is unique in the study of CBDC to date. Privacy, safety and