Benefits of DCEP central bank digital currency
the media's attention to the central bank's digital currency has increased significantly, especially after Zuckerberg testified in Congress on the Libra issue and Christina Lagarde acknowledged the "clear demand" for stable currency at her first media reception as president of the European Central Bank, which seems to have changed the public's view on this matter, Let many people in cryptocurrency community think that cbdcs is in sight<
according to the latest survey report released by the bank for International Settlements, central banks in the past seven years have been investigating this technology and assessing its impact. Of the 63 central banks surveyed, 55 said they were unlikely to issue cbdcs in the next three years, and only one reported that they were "highly likely to issue large-scale cbdcs in the next three to six years."
although the proportion of central banks studying cbdcs is very high, the crux of the problem is that it is mainly theoretical and investigative work. Only five central banks have concted more in-depth research and real project development or experimentation - but that still does not mean that they will necessarily issue cbdcs
through close observation, it is more and more obvious that both Libra recently released by Facebook and the new stable currency assets have had a significant impact on the central bank. Today's situation took hundreds of years to form, but it changed in a few months; Competition, the most terrifying and unfamiliar concept that has never been thought of before and penetrated into the elite society of central banks, is now knocking at the door
it can be said that the solution to the current situation is still unclear. Some people who are familiar with these things even say that they are bluffing. However, in Lagarde's own words, the slow and wait-and-see regulatory approach can no longer meet the needs
1. What is central bank digital currency<
what is the difference between central bank digital currency CBDC and other digital currencies
CBDC is a new form of currency, which is directly issued by the central bank in digital form as legal tender. The current form of legal currency is cash, reserve deposit or balance settlement< There are two main differences between CBDC and other digital currencies (including cryptocurrency and other forms of central bank currency):
1. CBDC has nothing to do with cryptoassets. They're not decentralized, they don't have to be blockchain based, and they're certainly not anonymous, they're not unlicensed, they're not censored< 2. Contrary to the current digital cash, the operation structure of CBDC will be different from other forms of central bank currency. CBDC has more powerful functions. They are programmable, can generate interest, can be cleared in near real time, and have cheaper handling charges and wider openness
when designing CBDC, the speed of central banks is different. Different central banks adopt their own approach. However, in general, there are three problems being explored: whether CBDC should be based on token or account number, whether CBDC should be batch (only open to banks) or retail (open to the public), and whether it should be based on DLT
when CBDC is to be implemented, things will become complicated, and there are many thorny problems to be considered
for example, once CBDC is launched, does it need to cancel cash? Should CBDC carry interest? Should they have face value like cash? Or linked to the total price index? What impact will this have on commercial banks? What about anonymity and privacy? All these questions need to be answered<
2. Motivation for issuing CBDC
in the 2017 staff discussion paper, the Bank of Canada gave six reasons for issuing CBDC in an article entitled "central bank digital currency: motivation and impact":
1. Ensure that the central bank provides sufficient cash to the public, and maintain the seigniorage revenue of the central bank
2, Support non-traditional monetary policy
3. Rece overall risk and improve financial stability
4. Improve payment competitiveness
5. Promote financial inclusiveness
6. Curb criminal activities
looking back at the bank for International Settlements survey we analyzed earlier, payment security and domestic efficiency are selected as the most important motives of the central bank. According to a large number of papers published by the central bank and other large financial institutions, for developed countries, the transformation into a cashless society is the main driving factor, while for developing countries, financial inclusiveness, cost rection and operational efficiency are the main motivation
throughout the rest of the reports and the literature that can be found, the fierce competition brought about by bitcoin and other innovations in the cryptocurrency instry, as well as the clear need for "one step ahead", of course, are not listed as the reasons for issuing CBDC< The advantages and potential risks of CBDC are very low.
if the central bank starts to launch CBDC and succeeds in the end, there are many potential benefits
from a technical point of view, CBDC is much better than the current form of legal currency. They can be tracked better, collect taxes more conveniently, transmit monetary policy better, have better financial inclusiveness, and rece the cost of procing physical currency
the most obvious advantage is that payment is cheaper and faster, whether it is domestic payment or cross-border payment
in addition to the design and implementation problems, a key problem of issuing CBDC is that CBDC may increase the risk of bank operation. However, this only happens when banks promise that their deposits can be converted into CBDC on demand, which is not necessarily the case, according to the Bank of England document
4. Facts on the ground
how far is it from us to see a real CBDC appear in the market? It's hard to estimate, but at present, we can sum up the current situation in one sentence: all talk but no practice
if we put aside the failed digital currencies of Ecuador, Tunisia and Venezuela, we can only do theoretical research, a small amount of experiments, and issue some feasible CBDC issuance announcements supported by the state in the future
the most famous CBDC projects in progress are: e-peso in Uruguay (the project was successfully tested in 2018), DCEP in China, "project Inthanon" in Thailand, e-krona in Sweden (still in the research stage)...
5. The revolution has not yet been successful, and comrades still need to work hard
considering the factors mentioned above, Most of the headlines about CBDC's upcoming release are groundless. All projects scheled to be released this year have been delayed
in fact, there is still a long way to go for the birth of CBDC, and to convince the public, we need more than a statement. Given the current situation, it seems that CBDC and other cryptocurrencies may not affect each other - at least for now.
when people are used to digital currency, paper money will graally withdraw from the circulation market and enter the collection field. In the new environment of payment and circulation, the traditional paper money will become a symbol of an era and a memory of people. The paper money that used to circulate in the market will also become a kind of cultural and artistic investment goods, active on the electronic disk of the post money card. And those earlier and even rarer coins will also stimulate their prices to rise in this situation. It can be seen that the central bank's graal promotion of digital currency will have a profound impact on people's living habits and investment and financial management, which is worth looking forward to Sohu)
however, digital currency does not have to be used for payment. Some domestic application-oriented digital currencies have begun to find another shortcut and come out with a different truth. For example, coin Ying China crowdfunding project token; Puyin group launched the tea based digital currency Puyin.
The digital currency developed by the central bank has such a definition: encrypted digital string representing specific amount guaranteed and signed by the central bank . In a broad sense, digital currency includes a wide range of aspects, including electronic currency, virtual currency and legal digital currency. But strictly speaking, the digital currency developed by the central bank refers to legal digital currency P>
electronic currency is the digitalization of legal tender, including our common bank cards, Internet banking, electronic cash, Alipay and so on. No matter what the form of these electronic money is and through which institutions it circulates, its original source is the legal money issued by the central bank
In contrast, virtual currency is the electronization of illegal currency, and its original issuer is not the central bank. For example, Tencent Q coin and other game coins, such virtual currency is mainly limited to circulation in a specific virtual environment; Bitcoin, for example, solves the problem of decentralization and distrust through blockchain technology, realizes global circulation, and is sought after all over the world. In other words, virtual currency can only be closed in the network circulation, and digital currency can be used for real goods and services transactions, but only the digital currency issued by the state is legal digital currency, bitcoin is illegalthe digital currency researched and issued by the central bank is indexed RMB, which belongs to legal encrypted digital currency from the perspective of national schemes, and it is not only a payment tool but also a currency itself< the purpose of digital currency issued by the central bank is to replace physical cash, rece the cost of traditional paper currency issuance and circulation, and improve the convenience and transparency of economic transactions
hope to adopt
in terms of positioning, the central bank's digital currency DCEP is not simply the digitization of banknotes, but to replace M0 (banknotes and coins) and change the form of the base currency. M0 refers to the cash in circulation, that is, the sum of the cash on hand of various units outside the banking system and the cash held by residents. The digitalization of banknotes generally refers to online replacement of lines, such as Alipay and WeChat, which all belong to online payment. However, both of them need to bind bank cards to pay. DCEP does not have this restriction, that is to say, when using DCEP for payment, there is no need to bind any bank account
the name of digital currency is easy to associate with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, but there is a fundamental difference between DCEP and them: DCEP is centralized while bitcoin is decentralized
to be exact, DCEP is a kind of sovereign credit currency, while the latter two are the procts of the idea of "currency non nationalization". The paper money itself has no value. The reason why it can perform the function of currency is that it is supported by the national credit and has the nature of legal compensation and compulsion. However, cryptocurrency such as bitcoin is a kind of private currency in essence and has no solid credit foundation. Therefore, any cryptocurrency with its own mining algorithm, following P2P protocol, limited amount, reaching a certain degree of consensus and decentralization can be a substitute for bitcoin
comparatively speaking, if there is a substitute for DCEP, it can only be other forms of RMB, such as banknotes and coins. That is to say, the digital currency DCEP issued by the central bank is still the debt of the central bank to the public, and this relationship between creditor's rights and debt will not change with the change of currency form.
The role of digital currency:
1. First of all, the central bank's digital currency can provide a huge data base for monetary policy and macro Prudential policy, so that the regulatory authorities can collect real-time trading books of different frequency and different institutions according to their needs, and it is complete and real. This information advantage can help the central bank use policy tools more accurately and flexibly
Secondly, the central bank's digital currency technology can track the flow of funds and help the regulatory authorities to comprehensively monitor and assess financial risks. Finally, the central bank's digital money technology is concive to the transmission of interest rate of monetary policy. Digital currency technology supports "point-to-point" payment and settlement, which can improve the liquidity of market participants. Only the digital currency of the central bank, which is generally accepted by the whole society, can radiate this advantage to the participants of different financial markets, so as to improve the liquidity of financial markets. This will make the term structure of interest rate smoother and the transmission mechanism of interest rate smoother
extended data:
digital currency can be considered as a virtual currency based on node network and digital encryption algorithm. The core characteristics of digital currency are mainly reflected in three aspects: because it comes from some open algorithms, digital currency has no issuing subject, so no one or institution can control its issuing; Because the number of algorithm solutions is fixed, the total amount of digital currency is fixed, which fundamentally eliminates the possibility of inflation caused by the overuse of virtual currency; Because the transaction process needs the approval of each node in the network, the transaction process of digital currency is safe enough