The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is developing a platform that central banks’ digital currencies (CBDCs) can use to clear transactions between countries, executive director Kristalina Georgieva announced on 19 June.

The currencies “should not be fragmented national propositions,” she said. “To have more efficient and fairer transactions, we need systems that connect countries. We need interoperability.”

“At the IMF, we are working on the concept of a global CBDC platform,” she added. “If countries develop CBDCs only for domestic deployment, we are underutilizing their capacity.”

If CBDC transactions are not smooth and easy between countries, that would create a vacuum likely to be filled by private cryptocurrencies, she warned.

CBDCs are issued, backed, and controlled by central banks, while cryptocurrencies are backed by nothing but market whims and are a “speculative investment,” Georgieva said.

About 10 countries already have established CBDCs, with at least 100 more at some stage of development, Georgieva noted.

TREND FORECAST: This is old news to Trends Journal subscribers since we had forecast back in March of 2020 that the world would be going “FROM DIRTY CASH, TO DIGITAL TRASH,” and we have been detailing why they are doing it and the implications. Here are just a few of our CBDC trends analysis and: 

• “A PRIMER ON BLOCKCHAINING: THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND DIGITAL CURRENCY” (14 Sep 2017) 
• “DIGITAL CURRENCY FUTURES” (3 Dec 2019)
• “MORE ON DIRTY CASH TO DIGITAL TRASH” (21 Jul 2020)
• “IT’S OFFICIAL: DIRTY CASH TO DIGITAL TRASH” (28 Jul 2020)
• “FED RELEASES DIGITAL DOLLAR REPORT: GOING CRYPTO?” (25 Jan 2022)
• “CONGRESS PUSHES FED TO SPEED CREATION OF DIGITAL DOLLAR” (16 Aug 2022)
• “U.S. TREASURY PUSHING FOR DIGITAL DOLLAR” (20 Sep 2022)
• “TOP TREND 2023: DIRTY CASH TO DIGITAL TRASH” (3 Jan 2023) 
• “TOP TREND, FROM DIRTY CASH TO DIGITAL TRASH: DIGITAL CURRENCIES ARE COMING” (24 Jan 2023)
• “SPOTLIGHT, TOP TREND 2023: FROM DIRTY CASH TO DIGITAL TRASH” (7 Mar 2023) 
• “CRYPTO OWNERSHIP WIDER THAN THOUGHT, STUDIES SHOW” (13 Jan 2023)
• “HOW CRYPTO IS CREATING ITS OWN AI ECOSYSTEM” (30 May 2023) 
• “CRYPTO WALLETS FOR NFTS MIGHT BE COMING WITH A FUTURE ETHEREUM UPGRADE” (6 Jun 2023) 
• “U.S. GOVERNMENT HIT BY CYBER ATTACKS, WATCH FOR NEW DIGITAL CURRENCY PUSH” (20 Jun 2023)  
• “NEW CONGRESSIONAL BILL: CRYPTO WON’T BE UNLEASHED UNTIL GENSLER IS CAGED” (20 Jun 2023)