Countries representing over 90% of global GDP are exploring CBDCs

[Nathrixxx]

The quest to understand the opportunities and challenges of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, is underway in 81 countries, with five nations fully implementing a digital version of their currency, according to a new tracker from the Atlantic Council.

The Caribbean region is home to all five CBDCs that are currently in use, with The Bahamas, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia and Grenada all implementing their digital cash systems.

CBDCs are in their pilot stage in 14 other countries, including South Korea and Sweden, the tracker shows.

Established in 1961, the Atlantic Council describes itself as a nonpartisan organization that seeks to promote U.S. leadership on various world issues. The CBDC tracker, which was unveiled July 22, currently monitors 83 countries and currency unions.

Among the countries with the four largest central banks — United States Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and Bank of England — the U.S. is furthest behind in terms of CBDC development.

The Federal Reserve has been researching CBDCs for several years now, with Chairman Jerome Powell indicating in January that digital-dollar development is a “very high priority” to combat financial crime. Meanwhile, New York Fed Bank President John Williams believes that the emergence of cryptocurrencies raises challenging questions for central banks.

China recently indicated that foreign visitors will be allowed to use the digital yuan during the 2022 Winter Olympics — provided they share their passport information with the central bank. A group of U.S. senators that includes Bitcoin proponent (BTC) Cynthia Lummis has urged American Olympians to boycott the digital yuan. According to the South China Morning Post, Beijing responded by telling the U.S. senators to “stop making trouble.”

The People’s Bank of China claims that nearly 21 million people have already opened a virtual wallet for the purpose of using the digital yuan.

Source link:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/countries-representing-over-90-of-global-gdp-are-exploring-cbdcs

[SFR10]

The Caribbean region is home to all five CBDCs that are currently in use, with The Bahamas, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia and Grenada all implementing their digital cash systems.

That was interesting; I always thought China would be the first one to fully implementing it.
Although I knew something like this was bound to happen eventually, I was still a bit surprised to see the number of added countries ^[46/81] that were considering it in the past 14 months alone.
^{- FYI, even if all of those 81 countries come up with their own CBDC [highly unlikely since there are already a couple that canceled it], I still don't see them as a "real" threat to BTCitcoin.}

[avikz]

That makes sense for the government. Look at the benefits,

1. No more money printing and no need to have mints. No buying of expensive inks and no need of special papers.
2. 100% surveillance on people's finances so might help to boost tax revenue
3. Complete transparency which would force to reduce corruption at various level in the government

So few years down the line, all countries will start following this trend of CBDCs. That's when we will need cryptos to effectively beat down the surveillance of the government agencies.

[GoingIntoAction]

I was reading about the CBDC of the euro, which is the currency of my country, and basically what they want is a substitute
of cash in digital format.
That is, there will be some limits in which you can use this "digital cash" anonymously. Because they know that 100% controlled and tracked money will never end up being accepted,
and therefore they would not be able to get rid of the cash completely, and if by law they eliminated the cash without a real substitute with similar characteristics would be the triumph of cryptocurrencies. Because like the blacks markets would work? impossible with a bank account or a tracked digital euro. So I see quite unlikely that governments risk wanting to  absolutely control the use of money.

[DeathAngel]

CBDC’s are just as useless as fiat currency. They are destined to fail as they are no different to fiat currencies in the way that they can be printed into infinity.

Governments are scared of bitcoin & they should be.