Rethinking Banking: Disintermediation and the Role of the Central Bank

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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Stellar: https://www.stellar.org

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: https://www.coindesk.com/us-senate-floats-digital-dollar-bill-after-house-scrubs-term-from-coronavirus-relief-plan 

Philadelphia Fed paper: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/research-and-data/publications/working-papers/2020/wp20-19.pdf

Receptivity in Congress to the idea of a digital dollar: https://www.coindesk.com/how-a-flurry-of-digital-dollar-proposals-made-it-to-congress

Libra white paper: https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#cover-letter

Congressional hearing on using FedAccounts and for stimulus: https://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=406612

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