Ripple is piloting a private version of the XRP Ledger that's designed to provide central banks a solution for powering digital currencies. The project, called the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Private Ledger, will utilize the same blockchain technology as the XRP Ledger, giving it the ability to handle tens of thousands of transactions per second (TPS), as well as "the potential to scale to hundreds of thousands TPSs over time," according to a new announcement from Ripple. The San Francisco-based payment company notes that 80% of central banks are investigating the potential of sovereign-backed cryptocurrencies. The CBDC Private Ledger offers banks the necessary transaction privacy, security and interoperability with the legacy financial system to further explore that option, according to Ripple. David Schwartz, Ripple's chief technology officer and one of the original architects of the XRP Ledger, says the new CBDC Private Ledger gives central banks more privacy, security and proficiency in their transactions. Ripple also notes the XRP Ledger uses less energy, is less expensive and is "61,000 times more efficient than public blockchains that leverage proof-of-work." The CBDC Private Ledger will use the same consensus protocol as XRPL to verify transactions.