PANews reported on May 6 that according to Bitcoin.com, the European Central Bank (ECB) has selected Ethereum privacy layer protocol COTI as a pilot partner for the digital euro, and will work with KPMG, Accenture and other institutions to develop a CBDC technology solution to be launched in early 2026. COTI will use its original Garbled Circuits encryption protocol to build core privacy features for the digital euro. Nearly 70 selected institutions are required to complete the technical verification of the conditional payment system by 2026.

Shahaf Bar-Geffen, CEO of COTI, said that this is the second CBDC cooperation after the Israeli digital shekel project, focusing on how to embed privacy protection into the underlying architecture of the system. The ECB will provide technical specification support such as API to partners, and the pilot results will form an evaluation report by the end of the year.