Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) is the tenth title in the Digital Future Series — Book 16 overall. Few innovations sit at a more interesting crossroads of public policy and private technology than CBDCs. This book maps that

crossroads clearly: what problem CBDCs actually solve, how they differ from cash and crypto, and what trade-offs every country issuing one must confront.

Money is changing form again. Having moved from coins to paper to electronic ledgers inside commercial banks, money is now being reimagined by central banks themselves as a direct digital liability — a central bank digital currency,

or CBDC. Dozens of countries are now researching, piloting, or actively issuing some form of digital national currency.

The purpose of this book is to provide readers with a clear, structured, and balanced account of what CBDCs actually are, how they differ from the commercial bank deposits and cryptocurrencies covered elsewhere in this

series, and the real benefits and real risks involved in moving a nation's money onto this new infrastructure.