When it comes to the Blockchain technology development in Europe, Poland is very progressive. The Polish Blockchain Technology Accelerator (PATB), which operates under the patronage of the Ministry of Digitalization, has revealed that one of its team is working on the development of a digitized national cryptocurrency, called Digital PLN (dPLN), as reported by the Polish daily Puls Biznesu.
Prof. Krzysztof Piech is the initiator of the dPLN project and is leading a team at the Lazarski University in Warsaw, which is working on this. The team had already developed a working basic version of dPLN, and is currently working on the advanced version of the code. The team is also planning to begin the software testing phase in about two weeks.
Commenting on the project, Prof. Krzysztof Piech, who is also the president of the Polish Blockchain Technology Accelerator, said to Puls Biznesu: “We have created a cryptographic currency, which we have deprived of speculative features. We want to give our economy unprofitable money that does not require expensive infrastructure, and by the way, its transfer is ultrafast.”
Also, according to experts, to deprive the decentralized currency of the exchange rate risk, the creators might link its exchange rate to the Polish zloty (PLN), which means that 100 units of dPLN will be worth 100 PLN and vice versa. But approval from the government is necessary to start the scheme.
Many layers are overseeing this project to ensure its legality within the regulatory rules of both Poland and the European Union. Because of current rules, the coin cannot be anonymous and transactions have to be transparent to the authorities, unlike other Cryptocurrencies .
According to Prof. Krzysztof Piech, multiple countries will soon adopt the blockchain-based nationalized digital coins in 2018, and Poland’s dPLN can be paired with any currency of the world.
The team also explored the option of creating a decentralized bank, but because of the legal complexity, the implementation of such an institution is very difficult, and so the idea was dropped.
“We left the concept of a banking system based on blockchain technology, thanks to which the costs of its operations can be reduced by up to 35%. Using a distributed database, you can secure all securities or important documents,” added Prof. Krzysztof Piech while speaking to Puls Biznesu.
Prof. Piech also revealed that they are working on a consensus called proof-of-rate, in which only the parties holding most of the digitized token units can approve the transactions. With this technology, the team has achieved transaction processing in less than a minute, but they are aiming to take it down to less than a second by using the Lightning Network.
The total budget for this project is PLN 12.4 million, of which the Polish Technology Accelerator Blockchain has received more than PLN 10 million from the National Center for Research and Development.
CORRECTION
The Ministry of Digitalisation has responded to the article in Puls Biznesu denying any involvement in the development of a cryptocurrency, and that it has withdrawn its support of the accelerator.
The official statement reads:
"...issues related to money trading (including cryptocurrencies) are outside the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Digitisation and the Ministry of Digitalisation is not involved in any way with the preparation of projects related to money supply in Poland.
The authorities responsible for the decision on supporting the development of individual payment instruments are the NBP and the PFSA.
The Ministry of Digitalisation supports the development of distributed register technology, however, it does not run any projects and research related to cryptocurrency.
We would also like to inform you that the Ministry of Digitalization has now withdrawn its patronage for the Polish Blockchain Technology Accelerator."
