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

Deep Tide TechFlow News: On May 28, according to The Block, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) announced that its “Project Agorá” tokenization prototype has successfully validated the feasibility of atomic settlement for cross-border wholesale transactions. The prototype uses a layered architecture, leveraging tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to enable “all-or-nothing” execution across multi-currency, multi-jurisdiction transaction chains, while allowing each central bank to retain operational autonomy.

Legal analysis shows that settlement finality can be achieved in each of the seven participating jurisdictions, and privacy protection can also be ensured within a compliant framework. The project is jointly initiated by the BIS and the International Financial Association. It already 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 more than 40 private financial institutions. In the next phase, the Bank of Canada will officially join as the eighth central bank member, advancing the project to a real-value testing stage and further expanding private-sector participation.