Stablecoins and the digital pound
Two different things that keep getting called the same thing.
One is issued by companies. The other would be issued by the Bank of England. People argue fiercely about the second and then apply the argument to the first. This page separates them, plainly, without telling you what to think about either.
The difference in one sentence
A stablecoin is private money backed by reserves. A digital pound would be public money, issued by the state.
That is not a detail. It changes who issues it, who is accountable for it, what law applies, and — the part people actually care about — what powers exist over it and who holds them.
Cash
Issued byThe Bank of England
Held byYou, in your pocket
Backed byThe state
Rules attachedNone. A note spends anywhere that takes notes
Exists todayYes
Stablecoin
Issued byA private company
Held byYou, in your own wallet
Backed byReserves the issuer holds — cash and short-term government debt
Rules attachedWhatever the issuer can do under its own terms and the law
Exists todayYes. This is what Ceodore works with
Digital pound
Issued byThe Bank of England
Held byYou, through a bank or payment firm
Backed byThe state
Rules attachedThe subject of the argument. See below
Exists todayNo. Exploratory work only
Where Britain actually is
No decision has been taken.
The Bank of England and the Treasury have been exploring a retail digital pound for several years. It remains exploratory: the Bank has said legislation and further consultation would come before any launch, and that it thinks one could be needed in future rather than that one is coming.
The design they have described has some specific features, and they are worth knowing before forming a view.
IntermediatedYou would hold it through a bank or payment firm, not an account at the Bank of England. The Bank has said it would not see your personal data or your individual transactions.
Cash continuesThe Bank has repeatedly committed to issuing physical cash for as long as people want it.
Not programmed by the stateThe Bank has said it would not program a digital pound, and that any programmable features would be chosen by the user through their provider.
Holding limits discussedProposals have included caps on individual holdings, intended to protect bank deposits rather than to limit spending.
The argument, fairly
Both sides are arguing about something real.
What worries people
The concern is about capability rather than intention. A system recording transactions centrally could, in principle, allow more visibility than cash does. A system where money can carry rules could, in principle, allow money that expires, or that cannot be spent on certain things, or that is limited for certain people.
The argument runs that a promise not to use a capability is weaker than not building it, because promises are policy, and policy changes with governments. That is not a paranoid position and dismissing it as one is not an answer.
What supporters answer
That most people's money is already digital and already visible to their bank, so the privacy comparison is with a bank account rather than with cash. That the intermediated design deliberately keeps the central bank away from personal data. And that safeguards can be written into law rather than left as assurances.
They also point to the practical case: payments infrastructure that is publicly provided, universally accessible, and not dependent on a handful of private card networks.
We are not going to tell you who is right
This is a genuine disagreement about institutional design and trust, not a factual dispute with one correct answer. Where you land depends on how much weight you give written safeguards against future governments, and that is a political judgement rather than a technical one.
A payments software company telling its customers what to think about monetary policy would be overstepping. We would rather set out what is actually proposed and let you decide.
Where we stand
We built this on private money, and we would support a digital pound.
Those are not contradictory positions. One is a bet on where the next decade goes. The other is an engineering decision that costs us nothing to keep open.
The bet we have made
We think the private sector builds most of this. Regulated issuers, holding real reserves, under rules like the ones the Bank published in 2026, competing on quality and cost. That is already happening, it is already usable, and it does not require anyone to wait for a government decision.
Over the next five to ten years we expect that to grow considerably, and to look less like crypto and more like plumbing. Ceodore is built for that world because that world exists now.
And if a digital pound arrives
We are ready for it. Every asset Ceodore handles is a row in a registry describing it — chain, issuer, denomination, decimals. Supporting a new one is an entry in that table, not a rewrite and not a release.
If the Bank issues a digital pound and merchants want to accept it, we would support it the same way we support anything else. We have no commercial reason to prefer one over the other: we charge a subscription and take nothing from your payments.
What does not change either way
We could not restrict what you hold even if we were asked to.
Whatever form of money passes through it, Ceodore never holds your funds and never holds your keys. A payment goes from your customer's wallet directly to yours, and we watch it happen and write it down.
That means there is no mechanism in this product that could freeze a balance, reverse a payment, attach a condition to money, or report a holding to anyone. Not because we promise not to — because the capability was never built, and building it would mean building a different product.
It is the only assurance we can give that does not depend on us keeping a promise, which is exactly the standard the argument above says people should apply.
There is no Ceodore token, and there never will be
We have not issued a token, coin or cryptoasset of any kind, on any blockchain. There has been no sale, no presale, no airdrop and no allocation, and there is nothing of ours to buy, hold or trade.
We charge a subscription for software. That is the whole business model, and issuing a token would change what this company is in ways we have deliberately avoided.
If you are ever shown a Ceodore token, a contract address, a ticker, or an offer connected to our name or to anyone who works here, it is not ours. Treat it as fraudulent and send nothing to it. Any announcement worth believing would appear on this website first, and never in a direct message or a reply.
The plainer version
If you want the basics without the politics, the stablecoin explainer covers what they are, why the value holds, and what the British rules require.