Boston Fed releases first CBDC research – Better than crypto?

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, released their research on a proposed central bank digital currency. It is said to be able to handle 1.7 million transactions a second, but at the end of the day it’s still the dollar.

There has been much talk of the US developing its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) in order to speed up transactions, improve settlement times, and facilitate far easier cross-border payments. 

China is building out its own digital yuan and has run several pilots with it so far. Many believe that its ban on crypto mining and all crypto transactions in the country were in order to smooth the way for its own digital currency.

Up till now, the noises coming out of the Fed were that a digital dollar wasn’t really the preferred path for the US. However, this is starting to look like a smoke screen, and with yesterday’s announcement it looks like a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes.

The proud statement issued by the Boston Fed says that besides being able to support 1.7 million transactions per second, most transactions are touted to be settled in less than two seconds.

In an article by Market Watch, reporting on the Fed news, the performance is said to be “far superior to popular cryptocurrencies”. The same article highlights how bitcoin can only handle 7 transactions per second, while ethereum only does slightly better with 25.

What the article doesn’t mention is that at the end of it all, we would still have a currency that has lost over 96% of its value since the Federal Reserve took over the running of the US monetary system in 2013.

Is it any good having all these wonderful accomplishments in a central bank digital dollar if it is still exactly the same debt-based system that has brought the US, and particularly its middle and lower classes, to their knees through rampant inflation and fast dwindling purchasing power?

Finally, there appears to be a theme running through the mainstream media that the proposed new Fed coin is actually a cryptocurrency, but a far superior version to the rest of the cryptocurrencies. 

Besides what has been mentioned above, many of the cryptocurrencies have a limited token supply. More and more tokens can’t be foisted onto the market, thereby diluting the value of all those who hold them.

If you hold bitcoin, ethereum, or most of the other cryptocurrencies, they are yours. They cannot be taken from you. You are literally your own bank, without any intermediaries, and you can pay who you want without any centralised bank saying you can’t.

Endless piles of pretty much worthless fiat paper, or taps on a keyboard, mean that mainstream media can be paid to write the version of the truth that governments, banks, or the powers that be want. 

Anyone who is ‘woke’ enough to explore what is actually happening in the financial system should spend some serious time educating themselves on the cold, harsh reality of what the situation truly is. Failure to do so could mean a long hard road ahead.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.