Bank of England Looks Into 'Centralized' Bitcoin Alternative, RSCoin (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Bank of England is working with researchers at University College London to design a Bitcoin clone of its own that can be centrally controlled. It was recently found that the UK's central bank had reached out to university researchers to help it create a cryptographically secure digital currency. The resulting system has now been revealed, and is named RSCoin. The system employs cryptography to obviate counterfeiting and tampering. Unlike other mechanisms, the digital ledger used by the new cryptocurrency is handled exclusively by a central body and will only be made accessible to users in possession of a specific encryption key. Its developers explained that an RSCoin ledger could be published publicly by a central bank, and added that the system's design would also allow a central bank to make transactions entirely, or partially, anonymous.

Comments

Re:We already have digital currency like this.

[ClickOnThis]

No, a credit card may facilitate transactions in various currencies, but it is not itself a currency.

When you buy something using a credit card, you get a bill at the end of the month. Which you must pay ... using currency.

Re:Will it be pleasant to use, though?

[St.Creed]

Paying someone on the other side of the country $1000 in cash is not easy to do.

Why, Backward Cousin, do and come visit us in Europe sometimes! It takes about 3 seconds to transfer cash to anyone I know straight into their account, and takes at most a day to show up on their account if they have some weird small bank that only processes transactions once a day. Once PTSD2 goes live in the EU, it will all be realtime across the entire EU.

Now, in countries that are a bit backward, like those colonies you live in, I understand that bitcoins are preferable to the alternative. But come on, it's 2016... surely your banks can come up with something better? :P :)