The bank acquired roughly one million dollars’ worth of bitcoin, dollar stablecoins, and a tokenized deposit. This is not an investment into reserves. It is a controlled technology lab where the bank tests what it means to actually handle digital assets – from approving transactions and managing accounting to volatility responses and secure key storage.
From the outside, the move may look like a shift toward bitcoin. In reality, it isn’t. The CNB has long warned retail investors about risks tied to cryptocurrencies, and this test doesn’t change its stance. The purpose is purely technical: to understand what skills a central bank will need once financial markets start relying on blockchain far more than they do today.
Governor Aleš Michl has repeatedly mentioned potential tokenized Czech government bonds that people could buy as easily as today’s mutual funds. If the state heads in that direction, the central bank must understand how digital assets work. Regulating them on paper is no longer enough.
The CNB is therefore engaging in what is often called technological readiness. It keeps a conservative view of crypto risks while gaining practical experience with an environment that will play an increasingly important role in financial stability.
In the European context, the Czech step looks unexpectedly bold. Most central banks work intensely on digital assets, but not by buying them.
The European Central Bank is building the digital euro and testing how government bonds or bank payments could be settled via blockchain. It is one of the largest projects of its kind globally. But when it comes to bitcoin, President Christine Lagarde is firm – it is too volatile for reserves.
Switzerland shows a similar approach. Its central bank runs the world’s most advanced wholesale CBDC pilot, partly operating on real exchange infrastructure. Yet it also firmly excludes bitcoin from reserves.
France’s Banque de France, Germany’s Bundesbank, and Italy’s Banca d’Italia focus on tokenizing securities and connecting blockchain with legacy payment rails. Cryptocurrencies remain outside state balance sheets.
The Bank of England, meanwhile, is working with the government on a digital pound and setting rules for stablecoins, while consistently warning that bitcoin is not “real money.”
The Czech National Bank does not operate mega-projects like the digital euro or Switzerland’s wholesale CBDC. In the European landscape, however, it stands out by being one of the few central banks that decided to try digital assets directly. This remains rare, even among institutions with far more ambitious technology plans.
European progress thus takes two forms: building large digital infrastructures or engaging hands-on with a new class of assets. The CNB belongs to the second group. Not because it is changing its economic worldview, but because it recognizes the need to understand what will shape finance in the decades ahead.
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