There are a lot of misunderstandings about it. The European Commission, the ECB and other bodies have had groups researching blockchains and digital money for

There are a lot of misunderstandings about it. The European Commission, the ECB and other bodies have had groups researching blockchains and digital money for years. They've gotten a bit more serious about it recently and started floating the idea of a "digital Euro", after other governments proposed the same for their respective currencies (and the EU always copies the homework of other governments). They've talked to and polled citizens, banks and the industry regarding how to exactly implement it. They still have no idea what it actually is they want, so far they've just found out it needs to be 'secure', 'environmentally friendly', and similar buzzwords. It's important to understand that the Euro currently is not digital. What you're using digitally is not legal tender but like you rightly said based on private bank ledgers. This may sound like nitpicking and many don't understand there's even a difference, because they're so used to these sort of IOUs being accepted as money, but it's not the same as a printed Euro bank note. It's as a side-note for this very reason banks among themselves do not settle in this money but through accounts at the central bank, where they're required to at least have a part of it in actual physical cash. Which may sound funny because the banknotes themselves can be printed at will by the issuing government/central bank - but that's another story. A digital Euro would be digital money issued by the ECB itself. This already exists in a way when they credit money to themselves to for example pay for buying bonds as part of the current QE politics. Most money is created that way. But for us regular people, money exists either in the form of the bank IOUs (so called "book money") or physical cash. We've never seen actual digital Euros they don't exist outside the ECB servers. Digital Euros could be credited the your digital wallet directly by the ECB, for example if they were giving out helicopter money to citizens. Depending on how the system is implemented, it could also be tracked by them, or frozen. There are some who want to introduce it as a way to "fight crime" (I think we all know where this would be going). Others stress it's important it implemented in a privacy preserving way, to make it a sort of digital cash. It could be run on a centralized ledger the ECB controls, or be blockchain based. Both concepts are being considered and researched, they haven't really said anything about which they favor so far. Imo this is an important topic people should look into, it's about the future of our money. It could be a really cool thing and make things easier, or we could end up with a dystopian system where they monitor and control all our financial transactions. It's not unlikely printed bank notes will be abolished in the near future, if we don't have a digital replacement by then goodbye privacy and welcome total surveillance.