The digital euro has been making progress but in a recent ECB consultation, it became clear there could be major issues in its design.
I examine the rising relevance of Central Bank Digital Currencies. We look at the World Economic Forum policy guide to understand different versions of CBDCs and their relative systemic scale, and the ConsenSys technical architecture guide to understand how one could be implemented today. For context, we also dive into a very different topic -- Lithium ion batteries -- and show how a change in the cost of a fundamental component part (e.g, 85% cost reduction in energy, or financial infrastructure) opens up a massive creative space for entrepreneurs.
As development of CBDCs continues worldwide, the ECB makes some signifficant announcements, but some still say, "why not use stablecoins?"
This week Isabelle sat down with Jonas Gross from the Digital Euro Association to talk about Europe's development of a CBDC.
The IMF said Brazil's Digital Real could reap the benefits of blockchain technology and compete with privately-issued stablecoins.
In this week's LendIt TV session we learned about the state of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) with experts from the USA, Europe, and China.
Since before bitcoin blew up in 2018, leading financial minds the world over have been researching the implications of institutionally created currencies for use as digital cash, to settle interbank deposits, and for monetary policy development.
Gov. DeSantis has said that Florida won't accept a CBDC, due to privacy and surveillance concerns. Stonewalling could be part of the problem.
In Latin America, regulators have shown a growing interest in the technology that powers cryptocurrencies to promote financial inclusion.
I anchor around the issues Libra is seeing in trying to develop a money, and what alternate strategies are available. We also analyze elements of a JP Morgan 2020 blockchain report, which highlights the differences between running a financial products (like a money) and a financial software (like a payments processor). In light of this necessary pivot for the regulated Facebook, we look again at Ethereum's decentralized finance ecosystem and the types of challengers it has created for Jack Henry, Finastra, Envestnet, TradeWeb, and other infrastructure providers.
In this episode we talk with Daniel Gorfine, co-founder of the Digital Dollar Project, about Central Bank Digital Currencies - how they will work, the challenges needed to be overcome and when they might arrive.