0:00
The one final note I will uh make is
0:02
that if you think about the benefits of
0:04
digital money, there are huge potential
0:07
gains. It's not just about uh digital
0:09
forms of physical currency. You can have
0:11
programmability, you know, um units of
0:14
central bank currency with expiry dates.
0:16
You could have, as I argue in my book, a
0:18
potentially better and as some people
0:21
might see it, or a darker world where
0:22
the government decides that units of
0:24
central bank money can be used to
0:26
purchase some things but not other
0:28
things that it deems less desirable like
0:31
say ammunition or drugs or pornography
0:33
or something of the sort. And that is
0:35
very powerful in terms of the use of a
0:37
CBDC and I think also extremely
0:40
dangerous for central banks because
0:43
ultimately if you have different units
0:44
of central bank money with different
0:46
characteristics or if you use central
0:49
bank money as a conduit for economic
0:52
policies in a very targeted way or more
0:55
broadly for social policies that could
0:58
really affect the integrity of central
0:59
bank money and the integrity and
1:01
independence of central banks. So there
1:04
are wonderful notions of things that can
1:06
be done with digital money. But again, I
1:08
fear that technology could take us to a
1:10
better place, but equally has a
1:12
potential to take us to a pretty dark
