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Creating a digital version of the U.S. dollar will take years, treasury secretary Janet Yellin said in a 7 April speech at American University, although China and some other countries already have fielded digital versions of their currencies, as we reported in “China Goes Full Digital Yuan in Beijing” (29 Jun 2021) and “Canada Forging “Globally Coordinated” Digital Currency” (3 Nov 2020), among other stories.
President Joe Biden has ordered federal agencies to analyze the impact of digital currencies on government operations, which we reported last month in “Biden Will Sign Executive Order Regarding Cryptos” (8 Mar 2022).
Creating a digital dollar would involve considerations of national security, monetary policy, international trade, and consumer acceptance and use, Yellin said.
Whether Congress would need to authorize a digital buck, and whether it would, also must be considered, she noted.
“I can’t tell you yet what conclusions we will reach, but we must be clear that issuing a [digital dollar] would likely present a major design and engineering challenge that would require years of development, not months,” she said.
TREND FORECAST: Again, we invite readers to go back to the 23 June 2020 Trends Journal when Bitcoin was trading under $10,000 per coin. We had forecast the price would spike much higher “when it solidly breaks above the 10,000 mark.”
It did, and we have been bullish on it. However, the Trends Journal has continually warned that crypto coins were due for a major tumble when central banks and governments took action to rein them in.
And, with more central banks planning to go digital in the coming years, they would not tolerate competition. (See our 24 March 2020 article, “FROM DIRTY CASH TO DIGITAL TRASH.”)
Those warnings have become reality. However, it will be years before they are fully implemented by governments and there will still be cryptocurrencies that will attract “out of the government box” investors.