There were reports about "Digital Euro" a while back, before all that chaos ensued. If they would have started this now, I'd have said that November 25 is quite ambitious. Depending on the current state of this project and how long they've been working on it, it might not be too ambitious. Still, it's a huge task and there are many ways how this might get delayed.
Also having a payment network online is one step. Having businesses and banks adopt and implement it, is another. Even if this will start in November, I doubt it'll be a full fledged alternative on day one and it will still take some months to years to get it accepted (almost) everywhere. Also don't forget, that - if they want to implement Credit Cards - banks might need to issue new cards to their customers. I don't think, they'd swap them out all at once. More likely they'll swap them out, when you need a new card (validity date over, stolen, broken,...). This will slow down adoption. Issuing virtual cards on your phone that support this network might help for a faster adoption, though.
Schaut ertappt auf die Kisten mit ausgemusterten alter Hardware, die man nie wieder nutzt aber sicher nochmal für irgendwas verwenden kann.
Wie wäre es mit dem proprietären USB-to-RS232 Kabel, welches man benutzt, um die ISDN-Anlage meiner Eltern zu programmieren? Sogar noch mit Treibern und Software (nur lauffähig unter Win98; verweigert den Dienst in einer VM).