Main theses of the report:
- The spread of central bank digital currencies ( CBDC) is only a matter of time. This will happen as part of a strong digitization trend that is the government’s counter-reaction to the development of private cryptocurrencies.
- Individual CBDCs will significantly differ in terms of structure and inherent features (e.g. supply, expiry date, interest rate).
- CBDCs will be used not only as means of payment, but also as extremely effective tools of monetary and economic policy.
- Central bank digital currencies will have a great impact on the stability of the financial system, banking market, deposit rates, gold and private cryptocurrency markets. The scale of this impact will depend on the design of the most important and most popular CBDCs.
- A serious geopolitical player to first introduce CBDC into circulation will receive a significant priority bonus.
- A geopolitical player who launches CBDCs offering a high degree of transaction anonymity (or complete anonymity) could become a 21st century “digital Switzerland”.
