At the height of 2017’s ICO boom, European Union member Estonia said it had the digital backbone to issue its citizens a national cryptocurrency, an “Estcoin.”

At the time, then-European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi slapped down Estonia’s plans. But in an interesting indication of how far things have come, Estonia’s latest round of experimentation in building a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, is a rare example of a project publicly linked to the ECB’s now-energetic digital euro ambitions.

The ECB’s changed position today signifies how serious the discussion around a digital euro has become, said Luukas Ilves, head of strategy and innovation at Guardtime, the technology provider assisting Eesti Pank, the central bank of Estonia.