Fed will launch a broad discussion of a digital dollar this sunmer

[ColinC]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-will-launch-a-broad-discussion-of-a-digital-dollar-this-summer-powell-says-11621534045

Last summer, a team at the Boston Fed started to work with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to find out what it would take to build a U.S.-backed digital currency.

A Fed-backed digital dollar wouldn’t be a cryptocurrency based on decentralized blockchain, the ledger-based technology that underpins traditional digital currencies like bitcoin BTCUSD . It would merely be a digitized form of the fiat dollars that the Fed issues, and with which Americans are the most familiar, essentially antithetical to assets like bitcoin, in the eyes of cryptocurrency purists.

Great news!!

[roamer65]

1. It will make hyperinflating a lot greener.

We won’t have to waste physical resources on massive currency printing operations.

[rampartc]

3. printing is very environmentally friendly compared to bitcoin mining

[roamer65]

5. There won't be mining with a "digital dollar".

Just keyboard entries from the Federal Reserve computers. Banks will never go insolvent. Inflation? That’s another story.

Billions with a few keystrokes.

[ColinC]

12. I mean, that's still sort of the case now, right?

Can't the government inflate the amount of cash without printing money already? But yeah I see this as a far better option than printing money.

[rampartc]

20. solving the block chain requires massive electricity.

the federal reserve already transfers money digitally.

[ColinC]

11. Bitoin mining is the only one of it's kind that contributes to its massive waste

Which is why tesla dropped it, and it may likely go out of style soon if it doesn't substantially change its model on a fundamental level.

However, a digital dollar would be massively greener compared to the wasteful creation of paper money.

[PoliticAverse]

2. The final destruction of the dollar. n/t

[roamer65]

4. Voltaire.

“All paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value...zero.”

I don’t see digital dollars varying from his statement.

[backscatter712]

6. Some cryptographic technology like blockchain would have to be used.

Maybe centralized at Federal Reserve servers.

But you have to make sure the problem that each digital "dollar bill" can't just be copied. That's the whole point of blockchain - it verifies every transaction, so a person can't spend cryptocurrency they've already spent.

[ColinC]

14. I'm pretty sure digital currency, especially now, can solve that issue.

Proof of stake seems to be the leading argument for cryptos to start changing to, but there might need to be an additional measure in place to try to make it as secure as bitcoin. Bitcoin transactions are too long, overly wasteful in energy, but provide that solid security measure we look for to prevent fraud. I know the dogecoin folks with elon musk are trying to come up with something like that for dogecoin. If it works, maybe they could use that technology for this new dollar.

I'll also be interested in any non-crypto alternatives that the federal government and MIT might come up with.

[Johonny]

7. isn't it already mostly digital

Since the pandemic started I've barely touched cash.

[brush]

9. Yes, it would seem so since it's so easy to wire or transfer funds electronically and online.

I don't get the necessity of this. Maybe someone will explain the need.

[ColinC]

18. Wire transfers take days to complete

Newer technology like block chain can confirm a transaction in a matter of hours if not minutes making the transfer of funds that much easier and faster. I will be interested in what alternatives the fed looks at with MIT.

[Midnight Writer]

8. They can take the paper money, shred it, and feed it to chickens.

I understand chickens love to eat shredded paper.

[soothsayer]

10. Ha! I see what you did there...

[ColinC]

13. Excelllent!!

[PoliticAverse]

15. ...

[ColinC]

16. ...

[RandiFan1290]

17. lol

[AllaN01Bear]

19. good gravy.what could possibly go wrong ?