The Project Tourbillon, which took place on 28 Nov 2023, focused on exploring anonymity in digital payments. It aimed to address the concerns regarding privacy, security, and scalability for retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The decline in cash usage globally and the increasing popularity of digital payments have led to a growing number of cashless transactions, with over 1 trillion transactions in CPMI countries alone. However, this development has also raised concerns about the potential erosion of privacy. Public consultations by central banks on retail CBDCs have highlighted privacy as a crucial user requirement. In response to these concerns, Project Tourbillon developed two CBDC prototypes that simultaneously addressed three features: enabling payer anonymity to ensure privacy, implementing quantum-safe cryptography for enhanced security, and testing the prototypes’ scalability to handle a growing number of transactions using payment data. The Project Tourbillon initiative was led by the BIS Innovation Hub Swiss Centre.
HomeCBDCbis_cbcd_updatesExploring Privacy, Security, and Scalability for CBDCs in Project Tourbillon