{"id":30721,"date":"2018-02-09T07:10:53","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T12:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30721"},"modified":"2018-02-09T07:10:53","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T12:10:53","slug":"from-the-moneyness-blog-electronic-money-will-only-save-central-banks-from-subjugation-if-it-is-anonymous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30721","title":{"rendered":"From the Moneyness Blog: Electronic Money Will Only Save Central Banks From Subjugation if it is Anonymous"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FROM THE MONEYNESS BLOG: ELECTRONIC MONEY WILL ONLY SAVE CENTRAL BANKS FROM SUBJUGATION IF IT IS ANONYMOUS\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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50 SEK banknote issued by the Riksbank in 1960<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u201cDo we need an eKrona?\u201d\u00a0asks<\/a>\u00a0Stefan Ingves, the Governor of the Riksbank, Sweden\u2019s central bank. The Riksbank is probably the central bank that has advanced the furthest in discussions surrounding the introduction of a central bank-issued digital currency (CBDC)\u2014a new form of risk-free digital money for use by the public.\u00a0Canada<\/a>,\u00a0New Zealand<\/a>,\u00a0Australia<\/a>,\u00a0the ECB<\/a>, and\u00a0China<\/a>\u00a0are also dissecting the idea, with more central banks to come in 2018.<\/p>\n

Sweden is approaching the issue from a unique angle, says Ingves. It is the only country in the world showing a consistent decline in cash and coin usage. I\u2019ve written about this interesting pattern\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>, and\u00a0here<\/a>. Below is a chart:<\/p>\n

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Ingves floats two theories. Either the Swedish public no longer wants central bank money, or alternatively they\u00a0do\u00a0<\/i>want central bank money but\u00a0not\u00a0<\/i>the type that is \u201cmade of pieces of paper,\u201d preferring instead an as-yet non-existent digital alternative. If so, then it may be the Riksbank\u2019s duty to provide that alternative, says Ingves.<\/p>\n

Duty is an admirable motivation, but let me propose another reason for why the Riksbank is exploring the idea of an eKrona\u2014self preservation. I think Sweden\u2019s central bank is terrified that it will become powerless in the future. It is desperately casting around for solutions to resuscitate itself, one of these being an eKrona. This fear is rooted in the fact that declining cash usage has led to a collapse in the resources that the Riksbank believes that it needs to function.<\/p>\n

These worries about powerlessness are shared by central bankers around the world, many of whom expect advances in private payments technology to lead them to the same\u00a0cash-light<\/i>\u00a0world that Sweden is currently entering.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FROM THE MONEYNESS BLOG: ELECTRONIC MONEY WILL ONLY SAVE CENTRAL BANKS FROM SUBJUGATION IF IT IS ANONYMOUS\u00a0 50 SEK banknote issued by the Riksbank in 1960 \u201cDo we need an eKrona?\u201d\u00a0asks\u00a0Stefan Ingves, the Governor of the Riksbank, Sweden\u2019s central bank. The Riksbank is probably the central bank that has advanced the furthest in discussions surrounding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1035,124,7380,4955,17620,536,3471,771],"class_list":["post-30721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-cash","tag-central-banks","tag-cobden-centre","tag-digital-currency","tag-electronic-money","tag-money","tag-riksbank","tag-sweden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30722,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30721\/revisions\/30722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}