BIS: Project Agorá Prototype Validates Feasibility of Tokenized Cross-Border Wholesale Payment Atomic Settlement

According to The Block, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) announced that its “Project Agorá” tokenized prototype has successfully validated the feasibility of atomic settlement for cross-border wholesale transactions. The prototype adopts a layered architecture that leverages tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to execute multi-currency, multi-jurisdiction “all-or-nothing” transaction chains, while allowing individual central banks to retain operational autonomy. Legal analysis indicates that settlement finality can be achieved across all seven participating jurisdictions, and privacy protection can also be ensured within a compliant regulatory framework. Launched jointly by the BIS and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), the project currently involves seven central banks—including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England, Banque de France, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, Banco de México, and the Swiss National Bank—as well as over 40 private-sector financial institutions. In the next phase, the Bank of Canada will officially join as the eighth central bank participant; the project will advance to real-value testing and further expand private-sector involvement.