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Christopher Giancarlo: Why the US Needs to Have a Digital Dollar
Episode 177
At an event at the NYU Stern School of Business, Christopher Giancarlo, former CFTC Chairman and co-founder of the Digital Dollar Foundation, discusses his proposal for a US central bank digital currency (CBDC), and how that fits into the broader geopolitical environment. We cover:
- Why he has focused on pushing for a US digital dollar after leaving the CFTC
- How a US CBDC would be different from other stablecoins
- How the proposal is designed to build off of the traditional banking infrastructure
- What pilot programs would look like
- How a digital dollar would foster economic inclusion even though using the digital dollar requires owning a smartphone
- How it would handle privacy
- How the network would be secured
- Whether the US is falling behind China in terms of central bank digital currencies and blockchain exploration
- Whether Libra will be a proxy for the digital dollar
- How COVID-19 has affected the discourse around a digital dollar
- Whether the election will affect the future of the digital dollar
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Episode links:
Chris Giancarlo: https://twitter.com/giancarlo
Digital Dollar Project : https://www.digitaldollarproject.org
Previous Unchained interview with Chris: https://unchainedpodcast.com/christopher-giancarlo-on-the-craziness-of-becoming-crypto-dad/
Chris and Daniel Gorfine’s WSJ op-ed advocating for a digital dollar: https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-sent-a-man-to-the-moon-we-can-send-the-dollar-to-cyberspace-11571179923
Digital dollars in stimulus bills — March: https://www.coindesk.com/house-stimulus-bills-envision-digital-dollar-to-ease-coronavirus-recession
April: https://www.coindesk.com/digital-dollar-reintroduced-by-us-lawmakers-in-latest-stimulus-bill
Pew Research on smartphone adoption: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
FDIC survey on the unbanked and underbanked: https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017execsumm.pdf
Banks keeping some of customers’ stimulus money: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/business/stimulus-paychecks-garnish-banks.html
Why a digital dollar is politically more feasible at this moment than before: https://www.coindesk.com/the-overton-window-opens-for-a-digital-dollar
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown also proposes digital dollar: Published on 5 years, 6 months ago