Mastercard has completed a test involving wrapping central bank digital currencies (CBDC) on different blockchains, similar to wrapped bitcoin (wBTC) and wrapped Ether (wETH).
According to October 12 advertisement, the trial was carried out with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the country’s CBDC Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre, along with the participation of Cuscal and Mintable. In a real-world setting, Mastercard said the solution allowed a CBDC owner to purchase a non-fungible token (nft) listed on ethereum. “The process “locked” the required amount of a pilot CBDC on the RBA’s pilot CBDC platform and minted an equivalent amount of pilot CBDC tokens wrapped on ethereum,” the payment processor wrote.
“A prerequisite of the test transaction was that both the buyer and seller’s ethereum wallets, as well as the nft marketplace smart contract, were ‘allowlisted’ within the platform. With all other transfers of the Blocked Wrapped CBDC pilot, successfully demonstrated the platform’s ability to implement controls, even on public blockchains.”
The solution uses Mastercard’s Multi Token network, introduced in June 2023, which integrates payment technology with blockchain. “Together with Mastercard, we have identified a use case whereby digital currencies and NFTs can be easily linked, potentially eliminating fraud and theft, ending the loss of documentation and records and unlocking new possibilities for commerce” said Zack Burcks, CEO and founder of Mintable.
The RBA previously stated that an Australian dollar CBDC would potentially enable complex payment arrangements and innovation in the financial sector that cannot be substituted by fiat money. However, the central bank also noted that “more research” is needed to assess the benefits.
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