Aliens TLDR

While one may say this is an advantage, their existing payments technology can also serve as a barrier to the creation and broad adoption of a CBDC.” Emerging markets looking into CBDCs have similar goals and motivations, the BIS said in a report earlier this month.

“Providing a cash-like digital means of payment, in light of reduced cash usage and an increase in private digital payment services, is the most common consideration,” the report said.

“When I discovered what blockchain was, I realized that there was a solution that could bypass where people are from and how much money they had and get them access to better financial resources.” Although interest in digital currency has grown, most CBDCs are still in early pilot stages, and those that have progressed further are not yet widely used, said Kenneth Goodwin, director of regulatory and institutional affairs at Blockchain Intelligence Group.

“I speak to John Rolle, who is the head of the Central Bank of the Bahamas, he’s not a big fan of the idea of all of this, quite frankly,” Goodwin said.

“His job has become a lot more challenging because he’s taking this digital asset and trying to find a way to implement that into the system where they used to have a fiat currency.” A huge benefit of CBDCs for central banks, Goodwin said, is the ability to better understand where — and how — people are spending.

“Anytime you digitize any platform, you’ll increase both cybersecurity risk and data privacy risk,” Goodwin said.

“Data privacy is very, very key in terms of who owns the data, whether that data is being owned by the individual or is being owned by the central government, and that is a huge issue.” Infrastructure is also a key concern, Aschettino said.