I found the article quite misleading. At first the researchers from one of the regional central banks of USA said,
“We believe that there is a strong case for central bank money in electronic form […] central bank electronic money satisfies the population’s need for virtual money without facing counterparty risk."
This above statement talks about counter party risks that may arise from the adoption of cryptocurrency. This statement actually talking positive about the bank issued virtual currency. No mention of cryptos. Now the second statement is,
“it makes little sense for central banks to issue cryptocurrencies even though it would be straightforward from a technological point of view to do so”
This statement essentially negates the need of cryptocurrency to be infused into banking system. While the earlier statement maintains the positivity towards bank issued virtual currency which will be strictly centralized and controlled by the banks. Now the third statement says,
“Once we remove the decentralized nature of a cryptocurrency, not much is left of it. As shown in Figure 1, virtual money that is centralized and issued monopolistically by a central bank is electronic central bank money.”
They are talking about removing the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency!! It is like a change in basic characteristic of cryptos. This statement is adding more weight to the monopolistically issued cryptocurrency that will be controlled centrally and they are mentioning such kind of cryptocurrency can be one alternative to the virtual currency issued by banks.
I see no positive though towards any open market cryptocurrency in the entire article. They could not even categorize bitcoin as a form of currency. This article and the subject line is misleading and US banks are maintaining the stance against decentralized cryptocurrency. Nothing to cheer about!