[Cryptography] Am I missing something about CBDC ?

[Ángel]

(note: this email arrived in a broken form, including a copy of mail
headers in the body)

On 2020-12-18 at 15:45 -0500, John Levine wrote:
> Hence my confusion about what problem CBDC is supposed to solve or
> what privacy and security features it would have. Depending on who
> you ask it's banking for the underbanked (who nonetheless have a
> smart phone and reliable mobile data or wifi), or maybe it's an
> electronic version of cash for anonymous mostly irrevocable
> transcations. Or maybe it's something else.

I don't think there is a clear statement of what it should have or
solve. In fact, I don't find those “cryptocurrency by banks” approaches
to be useful. Why would you want to e.g. create a "semi-private
blockchain between trusted parties"? Classical banking works well, and
banks should probably be the least interested in changing that (as they
would lose loads of money). I think the reason they spend big money on
developing their own new cryptocurrency initiatives is that they are
afraid of a new system which left them out, so they want to be part of
it. It's probably only profitable for the consultants being paid to
come up with silly proposals, though.


And then, if you don't know what CBDC should be, or which properties it
would have, you can't analyse or make statements about it, as it's not
defined.


BEst