Citibank has revealed that it was running a test platform for digital currencies to later develop its own solution, CitiCoin.
This past Tuesday, the International Business Times published an article where it revealed the Citibank group intentions. The state that Citigroup has built its own digital currency based on bitcoin and the Blockchain. This, in itself, isn’t very difficult, since anyone can create a cryptocurrency in a few seconds with a bit of programming knowledge. But the fact that Citibank is looking into the technology is very promising and a proof that that digital currencies finally aroused the interest of financial groups.
Citicoin – The Definite Interest in Cryptocurrency for Banking
Three months ago, Citigroup had a presentation in which the group tried to remove any doubt that banks are definitely interested in the Blockchain technology and what they think bitcoin. This reveals the increasing interest that financial institutions been having for Bitcoin and the Blockchain technology.
While it’s noble for banks to attempt these systems, it’s important to note that banks only want control. Banks are not afraid of cryptocurrencies, they’re just nervous. Once one of these systems begins coming online regulators will be forced to take notice and this means everything, from dogecoins to bitcoins to Citicoins, will eventually become regulated.
Kenneth Moore, head of Citigroup Innovations Lab stated:
“We have up and running three separate systems within Citi now that actually deploy blockchain distributed ledger technologies. They are all within the labs just now so there is no real money passing through these systems yet; they are at a pre-production level to be clear. We also have an equivalent to bitcoin up and running, again within the labs, so we can mine what we call a ‘Citicoin’, for want of a better term. We are at the leading edge of this technology and that we can exploit the opportunities within it.”
Citibank is positive about the potential benefits to be taken from this new financial technology. The company stated the adoption of Digital Money is inevitable.
This year all along, we have been seeing a lot of investment and an increased attention being driven by financial Institutions to support further investigations on the Blockchain Technology and the Bitcoin Protocol. However, While the Citi group believes that the use of Digital Currency is certain, it has an unclear assumption about the future of Bitcoin.