While the report detailed some of the technical aspects of the test – it used an undisclosed permissioned blockchain network and was written in the Rust programming language – it did not provide many details about how the simulation was conducted or how they confirmed transaction settlements.

This first phase saw each participant run “homogenous” ledgers, but future tests will see participants running different networks to test for cross-chain compatibility.

Fed officials have indicated they’ll wait for Congress to authorize a digital dollar before moving forward.

The experiment known as Project Cedar: Phase One focused on the potential for central bank digital currencies to become viable options for large foreign currency transactions.

The pilot beat the average clearing and settlement of transactions from two days to under 15 seconds, and completed the transaction at an “atomic” level, eliminating the risk that complicated cross-border trades might only partially go through.

Several countries already utilize non-blockchain, real-time payment systems, but they typically operate via a single currency. The New York Fed test cleared payments at a virtually instant speed between a digitized dollar and eight experimental currencies run on separate blockchains.