European Investment Bank choose Ethereum blockchain for bond issuance

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has sold 100 million euros of debt by leveraging for the first time a public blockchain, the technology that validates cryptocurrency transactions, it announced on Wednesday.

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European Investment Bank choose Ethereum blockchain for bond issuance

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"The EIB has used blockchain, this distributed ledger technology, to register and settle the digital bonds issued, in collaboration with Goldman Sachs, Santander and Société Générale," the institution said in a statement. The blockchain, or block chain, is a technology for securing and tracking information, the best known form of which is bitcoin. The EIB relies on the Ethereum blockchain network, the second largest cryptocurrency.

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A Big revolution

"These digital vouchers will allow the Bank to have faster and easier access to alternative sources of finance, to invest in projects around the world," said Mourinho Félix, Vice-President of the EIB. "It's the same evolution that took place when we stopped sending us letters to go to emails", judges for his part Jean-Marc Stenger, who heads Forge, the cryptocurrency branch of Societe Generale, which participated in this show.

The Banque de France also participated in the experiment, through its central bank digital currency (CBDC) project. According to him, the technical settlement times thus drop from several days to a few minutes, and the number of potential investors is multiplied.

At the launch of bitcoin, after the financial crisis, the first cryptocurrency aimed to become a decentralized means of payment through the use of the blockchain. If too long payment terms and too high volatility now push its followers to see it as a kind of digital gold, blockchain technology is used by financial companies.

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