Share this article
France, Luxembourg Test CBDC for 100M Euro Bond Issue
The Venus Initiative is the latest attempt to use digital representations of money for financial-market settlements.
Updated Nov 29, 2022, 4:57 p.m. Published Nov 29, 2022, 4:38 p.m.
France and Luxembourg have used an experimental central bank digital currency (CBDC) to settle a bond worth 100 million euros (US$104 million), the latest in a series of trials in tokenized financial markets.
The Venus Initiative "shows how digital assets can be issued, distributed and settled within the eurozone, in a single day" and "confirms that a well-designed CBDC can play a critical role in the development of a safe tokenised financial asset space in Europe," Nathalie Aufauvre, general director of financial stability and operations at Banc de France, the French central bank, said in a statement.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
The initiative also involved Goldman Sachs, Santander and Societe Generale as well as the publicly funded European Investment Bank.
The trial is the latest in a series of CBDC tests by the French central bank to manage liquidity in decentralized finance and settle cross-border transactions. The European Union has recently legislated to test out blockchain-based securities trading.
Read more: Bye-bye Brokers: EU Tries Stock Trading, the Web3 Way
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
U.S. Senate's Crypto Market Structure Bill Gets Messy as Calendar Weighs Down
The White House has shut down proposals, and lawmakers are circulating the Democrats' asks in what had been a close negotiation, revealing 11th-hour pressure.
What to know:
- Democrats shared a response to Republicans outlining their continuing priorities for a crypto market structure bill, which they said was intended to "reach an agreement and proceed towards a mark-up."
- The document laid out concerns with financial stability, market integrity and public officials' ability to trade and profit off of crypto, echoing concerns laid out in a framework Democrats shared in September.
- The Senate is running out of time in the Congressional calendar to hold a markup hearing — a key step toward progressing the bill — before 2025 ends.
Top Stories
