By Susie Violet Ward · Forbes · 24 August 2023
The article compares central bank digital currencies with bitcoin as digital alternatives to cash, focusing on financial inclusion. In 2023, China was in the final stages of piloting its digital yuan, while the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve were still researching CBDCs. The article argues that programmable CBDCs could allow assets to be frozen, spending to be restricted or given expiry dates, and taxes or fines to be deducted automatically, and that their national, centralised nature could exclude people and create a single point of failure.
It cites World Bank figures that about 1.4 billion adults lacked access to banking, and GSMA Intelligence data showing more than 5.4 billion mobile subscribers at the end of 2022. The article presents bitcoin as a global, open alternative accessible by mobile phone, including through tools such as TxTenna, while noting that its public ledger can be analysed to de-anonymise users.