As it has been a fair bit of CBDC news in the last few days I thought it would be a more efficient way to simply put them all into one post instead of peppering it out over several smaller ones. Let's jump right into it.
BIS or the Bank for International Settlement has announced that they are moving their CBDC project into the next phase. The project dubbed Aurom, talk about naming something right on the money so to say. The project will explore “the privacy of payments in retail CBDCs,”. Most likely how to keep your privacy if you are rich or a global corporation, while still abusing the system and everyday people.
“The goal is to leverage expertise from academia and privacy regulators to advance central banks’ understanding of privacy in the design of CBDC systems,”
Most likely an arms race between them and the national CBDC as with the national CBDC the need and use of a central bank are no longer as clear as with the current system. So if the central banks instead percent a bigger "better" global system. It could potentially save their roles.
BIS is also working on a project called Bridge, a multi-CBDC platform that would enable cross-border transactions. That appears to be one of the bigger hurdles with almost each and every country seemingly developing their own CBDC that works in its own unique way. Cross-border transactions would be a very large hurdle to overcome and a nice feather in the cap for BIS. That is if they can get a solid working system up and running.
They are also working on Project ‘Promissa’, which is a project aimed at tokenization.
China is reworking its current plan for the digital Yuan. They have targeted designated districts in Beijing and Shanghai for sped-up adoption compared to the rest of the country. China is currently pushing Shanghai’s Pudong District to be at the forefront of modernization. Or at least everything the Chinese government thinks modern life should include.
Shanghai’s Pudong District set to be on the forefront of modernization
Also, council members in Beijing are also urging that they speed up the trails in Beijing’s “Digital Yuan Adoption Demonstration Zone. In an interview a few suggestions of what this could look like "expand digital yuan’s application by installing e-CNY terminals in the local stores at famous sightseeing attractions, popular malls and shopping districts.". There were also talks about the need for a promotion mechanism, or an incentive if you will. They also talked about the need to encourage the consumer to use the digital Yuan, aka the people and not just businesses.
This will likely mean that the digital Yuan is ahead of its schedule. As they are moving up their plans like this. And I am guessing that Bejing does not want to be outdone by any other city as the capital.
What do you make of this CBDC news? Personally, the one that has me worried the most is what BIS is doing, as I think they can have input and leverage over the big companies and governments in a way that can seem foreign or alien to normal people. But I would love to hear your thoughts about all this, so please share them with me in the comment section below.
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