BREAKDOWN: Libra vs. DCEP? The Battle for the Future of Money Heats Up

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4.7 • 698 Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2020

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

This week saw the latest salvos in the battle for the future of money. Libra announced that it would be moving away from a single currency that was backed by a basket of national currency to a model of numerous individual fiat-pegged currencies. While the original model was akin to a disruptive implementation of John Maynard Keynes original concept for a global basket currency (which he called a “bancor”), this model seems more to position Libra to help existing central banks digitize their currencies. China meanwhile steamed forward with its digital currency and blockchain plans. Screenshots of an app from the Agricultural Bank of China show how the DCEP (Digital Currency Electronic Payment) is currently being tested, giving us insight into functionality, geographies and players involved. China also announced the 71 members of its National Blockchain Council, as well as went live with their Blockchain Service Network. The BSN in particular has potential significance on a world scale as China tries to build and control a key piece of global digital infrastructure. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Breakdown, an everyday analysis breaking down the most important stories in Bitcoin, crypto, and beyond, with your host, NLW.
0:15.0	The Breakdown is distributed by CoinDesk.
0:20.0	Welcome back to The Breakdown. It is Thursday, April 16th, and today we are talking
0:25.7	about the battle for the future of money. It is heating up. What money looks like in the future is
0:32.8	almost certainly going to be different than what it looks like today. And boy, are we living through
0:37.4	some accelerated times when it comes to that. So originally, this episode was going to be
0:42.2	almost entirely about China. We've had a number of different announcements over the last three
0:47.2	days, including the announcement of a national blockchain committee, the announcement of the
0:52.0	blockchain service network, BSN, which is set to go
0:54.8	live around the world soon next week. And we saw the first screenshots of an app for interfacing
1:01.6	with China's digital currency, the DCEP, which I'll call DeSep from now on just for ease.
1:08.0	But then this happened. This morning we got news that Libra was making a bunch of
1:13.7	big changes. So that's actually where we're going to start. We're going to look at what those
1:18.4	changes are and what they mean for Libra's place in this battle for the future of money.
1:23.4	So last year, one of the more interesting commentaries I heard around Libra came from Raul Paul,
1:31.2	who Bitcoiners are now well acquainted with, the founder of Real Vision, and an interesting
1:35.7	thinker about markets more broadly.
1:37.8	What he thought was interesting about Libra was this basket of currency's approach to a
1:43.3	global reserve currency, where you took the power
1:45.8	away from any one single currency like the US dollar, and you had it pegged to a variety of assets
1:53.0	instead. That to him was the real interesting disruption because it fundamentally shifted the power
2:00.3	balance. For those of you finance and
	...

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