While campaigning, President-elect Donald Trump promised never to allow the creation of central bank digital money and that he would make the United States the global capital of (private) cryptocurrencies. Elsewhere, this is mostly a technical discussion but has become highly politicised in the United States around concerns about government monitoring of people's lives.
A Bank for International Settlements survey suggests that up to 15 CBDCs will likely have been issued by 2030, up from three now.
Multi-currency cross-border payment systems will be an early CBDC application, reducing credit risk but expanding sanctions evasion risk.
Trump's anti-CBDC and pro-crypto stance risks making the ECB's CBDC pilot and new crypto regulation flashpoints in EU-US relations.
