It is another milestone for Bitcoin which appears to have appeared on a central bank balance sheet for the first time.
The Czech National Bank (CNB) announced on Thursday the creation of a $1 million test portfolio that includes bitcoin, a USD stablecoin and a tokenized deposit.
The pilot was approved by the bank’s board on October 30 and is designed to give the central bank hands-on experience with blockchain-based assets, which it says could reshape how payments and financial systems work in the future.
The total amount invested will not be actively increased, the bank said, and the acquisition was made outside of the bank’s existing international reserves.
CNB Governor Aleš Michl first floated the idea of an investment in bitcoin in January this year, a move that was met with derision by ECB President Christine Lagarde. While part of the European Union and the ECB, the Czech Republic has not adopted the euro, giving its central bank some degree of independence from the rest of the continent.
“I came up with the idea of creating a test portfolio in January 2025,” Michl said in this morning’s announcement. “The goal was to test decentralized bitcoin from the perspective of the central bank and to evaluate its potential role in the diversification of our reserves.”
