A digital U.S. dollar came so close to being a reality this week, having been proposed as part of the country’s bailout bill for COVID-19. To keep that momentum going, the Digital Dollar Foundation (DDF) has named several former government officials as new members.
The DDF, led by former CFTC officials Christopher Giancarlo and Daniel Gorfine, named 24 new members on March 26, CoinDesk reports. . This group will be expected to develop a framework for a new central bank digital currency (CBDC). The group includes Sigal Mandelkar, former undersecretary for the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence; Tim Morrison, a former advisor to President Trump; Sheila Warren, leader of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) blockchain efforts; Don Wilson, founder and CEO of diversified trading firm DRW; and Sharon Bowen, former commissioner of the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Giancarlo took the opportunity to praise the group, and express his hope that they’ll advance the cause of a digital dollar. “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,” Giancarlo said.
The DDF was formed in partnership with Accenture, and has the broad goal of advocating for a CBDC. The need for a digital currency might have been hard to understand for the public a couple of weeks ago, but millions of Americans are quickly going to find out how it would have made their current situation much better.
In several versions of the House Democrats bailout bill, a CBDC was proposed as a faster method of getting bailout funds in taxpayer hands. Without it, there are concerns that the people who need government assistance most may need to wait between three weeks to several months to receive a check. Many unbanked people will then likely lose 3.5% cashing the check.
A CBDC solves that problem by allowing the government to transfer funds directly to an easily obtained digital wallet. Unfortunately, the digital dollar was dropped from the House Bill, and will most likely not make it to whatever version reaches Trump’s desk.
To learn more about central bank digital currencies and some of the design decisions that need to be considered when creating and launching it, read nChain’s CBDC playbook.
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