Hong Kong starts second phase of e-HKD pilot to explore tokenization, offline payments
Hong Kong commenced the second phase of its central bank digital currency pilot on Monday, aiming to test the commercial feasibility of its e-HKD.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the de facto central bank, said in a statement that the project has been renamed “Project e-HKD+” as it officially commenced the second phase of the e-HKD pilot.
“Under Phase 2, 11 groups of firms from various sectors have been selected to explore innovative use cases for e-HKD and tokenized deposits across three main themes, namely settlement of tokenized assets, programmability and offline payments,” the HKMA said.
The HKMA intends to conduct the second phase with an e-HKD sandbox to allow pilot participants to prototype and test use cases. According to a separate official document, Hang Seng Bank, Aptos Lab and Boston Consulting Group plan to test the commercial value of settling a tokenized fund with digital money on a public blockchain.
