Lithuania's central bank has opened an e-shop for purchases of a crypto coin for collectors dedicated to the Baltic nation’s 1918 declaration of independence, Bloomberg reports.
The bank advised collectors to sign up before July 23, when it will offer 24,000 tokens based on blockchain technology.
Each coin will cost 99 euros and is titled as LBCOIN, will neither enter into circulation nor be legal tender. However, collectors will be able to exchange them for a physical silver coin or to transfer them to a public NEM wallet for trade on the secondary market.
Central bank board member Marius Jurgilas says the project is a test "to see how people and systems respond."
"It is a laboratory. The key benefit here is to understand how processes work to release such a coin," Jurgilas added.
Hence, the regulator wants to gain experience in virtual currencies and to test blockchain-based services.
iHodl earlier reported that the Bank of Lithuania wants to become the first central bank of the eurozone to issue a national digital currency.
The Head of Crypto at Visa, Cuy Sheffield, recently wrote on Twitter that central bank digital currency (CBDC) is "one of the most important trends for the future of money and payments over the next decade."
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