By Susie Violet Ward · City A.M. · 6 January 2023
Written as a City A.M. column in January 2023, the piece describes central bank digital currencies as programmable money and lists functions it says a CBDC could add, such as automatically deducting taxes and fines, controlling purchases and applying expiry dates or spending limits. It notes that China was the first major economy to pilot a CBDC, that the European Central Bank had said a digital euro might have transaction limits and a holding cap, and that Rishi Sunak had floated a “Britcoin”.
The column argues that CBDCs could let governments restrict what people buy, where they travel and whether they can protest. It accepts that a CBDC could help bank the unbanked, as the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change argued, but says bitcoin’s Lightning Network already offered that without central control, and presents self-custodied bitcoin as a way to keep financial freedom.