The Royal Canadian Mint is halting development of its MintChip digital currency and is now looking to sell the business. The company has been piloting the currency in the cafeterias at its Ottawa and Winnipeg facilities since early this year, using NFC to enable employees to make purchases with the Bitcoin alternative.

"The Royal Canadian Mint has made great progress in advancing the MintChip concept as an innovative, cost effective and secure digital cash solution," the company's Christine Aquino told NFC World.

"As MintChip's research and development efforts have matured at the Mint, the Government of Canada has moved the project to its natural next steps, including moving further development and commercialization to the private sector. The Mint is currently working with the Department of Finance to explore divestiture options. The Mint is also in the process of completing development of MintChip to package the assets for divestiture."

"The Mint always anticipated that the private sector would have to play a role in MintChip's market introduction," Aquino continued.