Czech central bank buys bitcoin for first time as part of digital asset ‘test portfolio’

The Czech National Bank (CNB) has acquired its first digital assets, creating a $1 million "test portfolio" comprising bitcoin, a USD stablecoin, and a tokenized deposit. This purchase was made outside the bank's existing international reserves and is intended as a limited experiment to gain practical experience in managing digital assets, testing technical, legal, and operational processes like key management and AML compliance. CNB Governor Aleš Michl stated the goal was to test decentralized bitcoin and evaluate its potential for reserve diversification, emphasizing that this move will not affect monetary policy or foreign exchange operations. The initiative coincides with the launch of CNB Lab, an innovation hub for testing new technologies. While the bank previously considered allocating up to 5% of reserves to bitcoin, this current portfolio is small enough that market volatility will have no material financial impact.

(Source：The Block)