In a move that should be of no surprise to anyone familiar with the space, Citibank has admitted to running a test platform for digital currencies and is pondering its own solution, CitiCoin.

According to the International Business Times, Citigroup has built its own digital currency based on bitcoin and the blockchain. This, in itself, isn’t very difficult – anyone can create a cryptocurrency in a few seconds with a bit of programming knowledge. But the fact that Citibank, at least in its R&D arm, is looking into the technology is promising.

The IBT quoted Kenneth Moore, head of Citigroup Innovations Lab:

￼Moore said: “We have up and running three separate systems withinCiti now that actually deployblockchain distributed ledger technologies. They are all within the labs just now so there is no real money passing through these systems yet, they are at a pre-production level to be clear.”We also have an equivalent to bitcoin up and running, again within the labs, so we can mine what we call a ‘Citicoin’, for want of a better term. It’s in the labs, but it’s to make sure we are at the leading edge of this technology and that we can exploit the opportunities within it.”

Moore also saw this as a way to move money from country to country and foresaw an internal “mining” network that allowed endpoints to generate the work necessary to maintain the ledger.

While it’s noble for banks to attempt these systems – and they will be attempted again and again – it’s important to note that banks want control. As I wrote before banks are not afraid of cryptocurrencies, they’re just nervous. Once one of these systems begins coming online regulators will be forced to take notice and this means everything – from dogecoins to bitcoins to citicoins – will become targets of scrutiny.

In May BitcoinMagazine noticed a line in a Citigroup presentation that should remove any doubt that banks are definitely interested in this technology – and what they think of wild and wooly bitcoin. “Due to the potential benefits, we believe the adoption of Digital Money is inevitable,” they wrote. “While we believe that the use of Digital Money is certain, the future of specific cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin is less clear.”