<story><title>The digital currencies that matter</title><url>https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/05/08/the-digital-currencies-that-matter</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>inshadows</author><text>&amp;gt; This metamorphosis of central banks from the aristocrats of finance to its labourers sounds far-fetched, but it is under way. Over 50 monetary authorities, representing the bulk of global GDP, are exploring digital currencies.&lt;p&gt;The article goes on from the premise that digital currencies are something new, but aren&amp;#x27;t almost all currencies already digital? I mean when a central bank decides to lend to retail banks (last resort) it just updates a column in its system. It doesn&amp;#x27;t actually print and ship physical currency. What am I missing? Is this just new hot buzz?&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I&amp;#x27;m not too familiar with the process of &amp;quot;printing money&amp;quot;, but I assume that Fed&amp;#x2F;central bank just buys some assets, and credits seller&amp;#x27;s account in its system. That all sounds pretty digital to me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hahaxdxd123</author><text>Money is definitely digital already, but I think the important aspects of this are the various implications of the central banks adopting modern tech.&lt;p&gt;Take China&amp;#x27;s e-yuan:&lt;p&gt;1) You directly have an account at the central bank and spend from it through an app&lt;p&gt;2) Central bankers can trivially apply stimulus instantly (no fuss about the $1200 like we had)&lt;p&gt;3) You can do crazy shit in times of recession like money that expires unless you spend it on goods in order to increase the velocity of money&lt;p&gt;4) Money laundering would be pretty hard.&lt;p&gt;5) Being able to easily build fintech products on top of it, instead of depending on dumb solutions like Plaid.&lt;p&gt;This sort of thing would be gamechanging IMO.</text></comment>
<story><title>The digital currencies that matter</title><url>https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/05/08/the-digital-currencies-that-matter</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>inshadows</author><text>&amp;gt; This metamorphosis of central banks from the aristocrats of finance to its labourers sounds far-fetched, but it is under way. Over 50 monetary authorities, representing the bulk of global GDP, are exploring digital currencies.&lt;p&gt;The article goes on from the premise that digital currencies are something new, but aren&amp;#x27;t almost all currencies already digital? I mean when a central bank decides to lend to retail banks (last resort) it just updates a column in its system. It doesn&amp;#x27;t actually print and ship physical currency. What am I missing? Is this just new hot buzz?&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I&amp;#x27;m not too familiar with the process of &amp;quot;printing money&amp;quot;, but I assume that Fed&amp;#x2F;central bank just buys some assets, and credits seller&amp;#x27;s account in its system. That all sounds pretty digital to me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rawtxapp</author><text>This brings central bank&amp;#x27;s control to a whole other level. For example, right now, central bank could loan lots of money to retail banks, but there&amp;#x27;s no guarantee that those retail banks will in turn loan it to average consumer. With this, they can bypass them alltogether and put it directly in retail&amp;#x27;s digital wallets.&lt;p&gt;Imagine things like money that self-destroys if you don&amp;#x27;t spend within certain amount of time or money that you can only spend at a certain place or for a certain purpose. The control that central bank will be able to exert is increasing by like 10 fold.</text></comment>