Always good to know what you're up against - even (and maybe especially) when it comes to topics you don't think belong here on SN. Like CBDC's and AI, for example.
Also, better the devil you know, and all that.
Partly inspired by the Human Rights Foundation's recent launch of their CBDC tracker, I found the keynote speech by Agustín Carstens, the general manager of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) at the CBDC & Future Monetary System Seminar in Seoul, Korea very interesting.
The talk is titled: The future monetary system: from vision to reality, no less.
A few highlights & comments from the speech:
-
The BIS lists some of the problems they want to "fix" as:
- Many parts of society remain unbanked, without adequate payment, savings or credit services;
- Under-use of financial services due to slow and costly transactions;
- Low customer satisfaction; and
- Feeble connectivity, particularly for cross-border transactions
-
Of course, Bitcoin is never mentioned by name - unless you take "encouraging financial activity to migrate to unregulated 'shadow' intermediaries" to mean Bitcoin.
-
The word "crypto" is never used. But "token" appears 28 times in the speech. No surprise there, I guess.
You can read the full transcript here: