Does America Need A Digital Dollar?

Open to Debate

Education, News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The digital currency craze started with at least one anonymous Bitcoin founder and a community of futuristic, tech-savvy investors willing to take a bet on a new form of money. But over the past decade, the world of digital currency has coined a host of new types of online cash. In fact, Central Banks in more than 80 countries have, or are in the process of gearing their monetary systems in that direction. They consider them a means of modernizing and serving as a check against the growth of crypto. In China, an estimated 140 million people have already begun using the new digital yuan, which accounts for nearly $10 billion worth of transactions. In that context, does the world's reserve currency -- the U.S. dollar -- need its own version? Those who are argue “yes” say it is a fundamental step to remain competitive; to ensure the dollar remains in its preferred global standing. A digital dollar, they argue, would also create a new ease of exchange, reduce delays in processing times, and help the underbanked Americans into the digital economy. Those who argue “no” point to the risks of failure, hackings, and privacy breaches, which includes widespread government tracking of transactions, and could allow for unprecedented federal access to personal banks accounts. Against this backdrop, we ask: Does America Need a Digital Dollar? Arguing "Yes" is Gillian Tett, Editor-at-large, Financial Times Arguing "No" is Dante Disparte, Head of Global Policy at Circle Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everybody and welcome to Intelligent Squared. I'm John Don Van and today we're debating
0:10.2	something that doesn't exist yet and we're going to be asking whether it should eventually
0:16.2	exist and so here is the question we are putting up for debate. Do we need a digital dollar?
0:22.5	Okay, so maybe this is not one you've heard argued before because of that non-existence
0:26.4	factor and also because it may not be entirely clear what a digital dollar is supposed to be.
0:33.2	So before we actually get to the debate we are going to do something different this time and we're
0:37.6	going to ask our two debaters not to argue just yet but to help explain and lay down some
0:43.0	understanding of what the term digital dollar means. So let's welcome Dante to Sparta who is chief
0:48.8	strategy officer and head of global policy for circle and that is a financial services firm
0:53.5	that works in private digital currencies. Dante, welcome to Intelligent Squared it's great to have you.
0:58.3	Thank you John. Great to be here. And Jillian Tet who is chair of the editorial board and US
1:02.4	editor at large of the financial times Jillian you have joined us and debated a bunch of times before
1:07.1	so this is definitely a welcome back to you. I'm delighted to be on the show but taking you with
1:10.9	someone like Dante. So we're going to try asking the two of you to hold back on the arguments and
1:17.1	help us understand this term digital dollar. Dante I'll go to you first and I think the way I want
1:21.9	to ask you is what is a digital dollar not? Right well I mean we could start with what it is not
1:28.4	it is not currently in broad circulation it is conceptual framework born and accelerated at
1:37.6	some level in 2019 where central banks around the world responded to two fears one was the fear of
1:44.6	big tech entering the payments and money movement system and the other is the fear of China tech
1:50.1	and so the the clearest definition of what a digital dollar would be is a digital dollar issued by
1:56.6	a central bank in the case of the United States obviously the Fed or in other countries they're
2:00.7	central banks that could exist at a retail level and that would be supported over the internet
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Open to Debate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Open to Debate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.