Historical Context and Key Features of Digital Money Tokens

TL;DR

This paper places digital money tokens within a historical context, highlighting their evolution from traditional money and identifying their key features to inform financial industry stakeholders.

Contribution

It introduces a 'money tree' framework to contextualize digital money tokens and details their key features with practical options and examples.

Findings

Digital money tokens have evolved from traditional forms of money.

The paper identifies key features of digital money tokens.

A 'money tree' framework contextualizes their development.

Abstract

Digital money tokens have attracted the attention of financial institutions, central banks, regulators, international associations and fintechs. Their research and experimentation with digital money tokens has included creating innovative technical and operational frameworks. In this paper, we present a 'money tree' which places this recent concept of digital money tokens into a historical context by illustrating their evolution from more traditional forms of money. We then identify key features of digital money tokens with options and examples. We hope this paper will be of interest to the financial services industry and we look forward to feedback.