For those who believe, as I do, that CBDCs are coming, and that, in the U.S. at least, there

is some room to shape them.

And who believe on top of that, that net net, a privacy-preserving digital dollar is

radically better for the world than a U.S. government surveillance coin, then the battle is

going to create some unexpected allies and unexpected bedfellows.

I think trying to understand where people are coming from rather than just

meming their perspectives is pretty valuable in that context.

Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the

Big Picture Power Shifts remaking our world. The breakdown is sponsored by nexor.io and bitstamp

and produced and distributed by coin desk. What's going on guys? It is Tuesday, June 15th, and today

we are talking about a U.S. digital dollar and specifically whether a future digital dollar will preserve privacy.

Central Bank Digital Currencies have been one of the key undercurrents of this show for

basically as long as I've been doing it. As I've said before, and I'll say again, ultimately

the breakdown is about shifts in power, particularly economic power. The question of central bank

digital currencies is absolutely one of power, and that question runs on a few dimensions.

There is the question of the power balance between states. The best example of this is China,

whose digital yuan efforts are at least in part an attempt to extend the sphere of influence of

their native currency, to internationalize the RMB and claim a larger status as a global

settlement currency and world reserve asset. Smaller nations are likely to as well look to digital

currencies as a chesspiece in reimagining where they sit. Importantly, this won't always lead them to their own

native digital fiats. As we've seen in the case of El Salvador, there may be compelling reasons

to instead look to a non-sovereign, non-aligned, independent money as well. But there's also a key

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