A technical guide to wholesale central bank digital currency — atomic delivery-versus-payment settlement between banks, multi-party institutional custody models, and why a CBDC built for interbank rails looks nothing like a retail digital currency.
A wholesale CBDC settlement is only useful if the transfer of central bank money and the transfer of the asset it is paying for happen as a single indivisible operation — either both legs complete or neither does. Anything less reintroduces the counterparty risk that atomic settlement exists specifically to eliminate, which is why the entire technical architecture is built around the guarantee, not just the currency.