Norway's central bank reached a major milestone in its digital currency efforts when it released the open source code for the sandbox. The sandbox, which is available on GitHub, is designed to offer an interface to interact with the testnet and enable functions such as the minting, burning and transfer of ERC-20 tokens, Norges Bank's official CBDC partner Nahmii said in a blog post. Nahmii emphasized that the current version of the code does not support the main Ethereum wallet MetaMask and is privately accessible only to users with the appropriate credentials.
In addition to deploying appropriate smart contracts and access control, Norges Bank's sandbox includes its own frontend and network monitoring tools such as BlockScout and Grafana. The frontend also displays a filterable summary of transactions on the network, Nahmii noted. Norges Bank mentioned on Twitter that Norway's prototype CBDC infrastructure is based on Ethereum technology.
The central bank previously referenced Ethereum in a May blog post about CBDC. Norges Bank then said that the Ethereum cryptocurrency system is expected to provide the "core infrastructure" for issuing and distributing the central bank's digital money, also called DSP. "The prototype will be used to test a number of important functions for the DSP," the bank said.
Norges Bank officially announced plans to conduct CBDC trials in April last year, with the expectation of finding a preferred CBDC solution by testing various proposals over a two-year period. In November 2021, the central bank released a working paper referring to possible CBDC proposals, including those based on blockchains such as Ethereum , Bitcoin and Bitcoin SV. Norges Bank emphasized that interoperability is one of the most important issues when considering different technical solutions.