Central Bank Digital Currencies or CBDCs may just be one of the most important developments over the next decade according to Visa’s head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield.
Sheffield tweeted that “as governments evaluate CBDC, the path they decide to take will have major implications for privacy, monetary sovereignty, geopolitics, and financial inclusion, as well as global adoption of crypto dollars and Bitcoin.”
CBDCs have certainly piqued the interest of many a central bank as more and more of them seek to jump into the fray. He went on to add;
“I’d argue that central bank digital currency (CBDC) is one of the most important trends for the future of money and payments over the next decade. Regardless of anyone’s personal views of whether it’s good or bad, the reality is that global interest in it is not going away.”
Sheffied has been a strong proponent of CBDC for a while now. In May, he said that central banks were not looking into consumer-facing digital currency solutions. His employers have been open about interest in crypticurrencies and even filed a digital currency patent application earlier this year. Central banks have been looking at the idea of offering digital currencies for a while now. This cannot be said of a few in the developing world, one of them being the top bank of India which can’t stand the idea of cryptos in general.
There has been talk of a Chinese CBDC for months now. Talk of a possible super powerful digital Yuan, has had some in America talking up the possibility of a digital dollar to counter the Yuan. More recently, we have seen Japan join the fray with talks of Yen-based CBDC. The Bank of Japan has not yet made clear any plans of action, but the BOJ has joined the league of central banks that are looking into CBDCs.
Image Courtesy of Medium
