Yesterday, the Digital Dollar Foundation announced a 22 member advisory group that will help set up the framework for establishing a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The Foundation aims to study the potential applications of a digital dollar.
Earlier this week, the Democrats in both the U.S. Congress and Senate published draft bills for Covid-19 stimulus, which advocated the use of a digital dollar or CBDC.
The Digital Dollar Foundation is a non-profit launched earlier this year by the former Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) J. Christopher Giancarlo and Accenture. The consultancy has previous experience of CBDC through work with the Bank of Canada, Monetary Authority of Singapore, European Central Bank and Riksbank.
The advisory group includes experts in fintech, crypto, banking, capital markets, privacy, property rights and educators, academicians and economists.
“The insights and expertise of the new advisory group members will be invaluable as we work together to help make the dollar a more effective and smarter currency in an increasingly digital global economy,” said Chris Giancarlo.
Payments advisory members include Cuy Sheffield, Head of Cryptocurrency at Visa and Jesse McWaters, VP of Global Digital Public Policy at Mastercard. Ex-government representatives include Sigal Mandelker, former Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and Mike Piwowar, former commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Representing capital markets is Martin Chavez former Goldman Sachs CIO and CFO, who at one point was tipped for the top job at the bank.
“We believe that a Central Bank Digital Currency will be an important building block for a more inclusive, efficient and effective global financial system,” said David Treat, a senior managing director at Accenture.
In the next two months, the Digital Dollar Project will publish a white paper discussing the value proposition of a digital dollar.
Meanwhile, China and the U.S. have been locking horns over trade practices, and the former is aiming to reduce the dollar’s dominance in global markets. China’s CBDC project is said to be close to launch, and a few months ago, Ledger Insights reported that pilot testing was underway.
Some countries studying CBDCs include France, Canada, Sweden, and the U.K., among others. Additionally, the European Central Bank (ECB) is exploring a retail and a wholesale CBDC.
