“Digital currencies like crypto really scared the bejeezus out of central bankers,” notes a financial analyst. The quote is one of the juicers bits from an insightful new look by the Wall Street Journal at the state of CBDCs (central bank digital currencies), the blockchain-based technology poised to change global banking.
The Journal makes the case that, whether they’re a good idea or not, central banks around the world are not just experimenting with CBDCs but—in the case of China, India and Nigeria—also putting them into circulation. One reason for that—as the “bejeezus” analyst notes—is that the rise of decentralized currencies like Bitcoin pose an existential threat to governments' historic monopoly over the money supply.
