In recent weeks, various central banks have indicated that they are exploring the possibility of issuing their own central bank digital currency, or CBDC. From Tunisia, which was at the center of false reports about the imminent launch of its own “e-Dinar” but confirmed it was studying the issue, to China, whose central bank appears to be on the verge of becoming the first to issue its own, called Digital Currency Electronic Payment system — central banks are starting to take digital currencies seriously.
While central bank officials and alumni have been resistant (to say the least) to digital assets, outlooks may be changing as mass cryptocurrency adoption by the public becomes more and more of an inevitability. Just recently, the United States Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell commented that the Fed is actively exploring the possibility of issuing a CBDC. However, he fell short of endorsing the creation of one, stating the Fed has “not identified potential material benefits of general purpose CBDC to the implementation of monetary policy relative to our existing tools.”