Over the last couple of months, countries throughout the world have been exploring the concept of central bank-backed digital currencies, a digital alternative to fiat that would completely digitalize everyday spending and largescale inter-state/inter-bank/inter-corporation monetary transfers. It only makes sense that nation-states agree with this concept, given the centralized nature of CBDCs.
Several countries such as China are already beta-testing their CBDCs, whereas others are actively-developing these financial instruments. For instance, recent developments suggest that the United States is currently working on the conceptualization and creation of a Digital Dollar. In a recent Banking Committee Senate hearing, Senator Tom Cotton mentioned that: “The U.S. dollar has to keep earning that place in the global payments system. It has to be better than bitcoin… it has to be better than a digital yuan”. During the senate hearing, debates were also held on a series of other crypto-related topics, including but not limited the regulatory oversight upon stablecoins, the advantages of blockchain-based financial markets, and the dawn of a new financial architecture.