The Bank of England launches a distributed ledger settlement pilot project

The Bank of England has announced the launch of the "Synchronisation Lab" program, which will collaborate with 18 companies to test how to achieve the settlement of tokenized assets in pounds through distributed ledger technology.

This six-month pilot will begin in the spring of 2026, with participants including market infrastructure providers, banks, and Web3 companies (such as Chainlink and UAC Labs). The pilot aims to validate the design choices of the central bank regarding synchronous settlement, assess the interoperability between central bank money and tokenized assets, and provide references for the modernization of the UK's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system.