The buzz and speculation about CBDCs continue. Most of the sovereign nations are in some stage of prep, study, pre-launch or full launch of their own version.
In this piece from Kitco, the author discusses CBDCs as mostly inevitable in some form and potentially troubling. It uses PayPal and Ye (Kanye) as analogous examples as to why. Keep in mind that, the CBDC use cases are retail (to some extent B2B but not in any scalable way). They replace printed bank notes with digital representations. The main question is how will they be distributed (through commercial banks or central banks) in terms of account management.
Hence the author raises the privacy question and uses the ‘cancel’ of Ye’s JPMC business accounts and PayPal’s aborted ‘misinformation’ policy as reason’s why, with the concern being toxic overlaps between business and politics.
The author goes on to discuss the following point. Using the recent crypto reports from the U.S. executive branch, emanating from the March White House executive order, the author gives examples of how crypto policy can have all sorts of extraneous extras that can be tied to ideology and not purely commercial exchanges. Then there is a point made about the awful stock market year and how bitcoin—and we suppose other cryptos—remain a viable choice as alternative investment options. It’s worth a read.
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group.