This text is taken from Courrier de l’ économique. Click here to subscribe.
Digital dollar, political conspiracy. While the Bank of Canada dreams of a digital dollar, the European Central Bank has decided to act. The legislative elections planned in the European Union, which will take place from June 6 to 9, however, threaten his plan. The creation of a digital euro is becoming a political issue, and conspiracy theories on the subject have already emerged.
Bottom line: the growing popularity of far-right parties in Europe threatens the jobs of elected officials who support the creation of a digital euro. In recent years, Europe has established itself as a leader in the adoption and management of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchainthis mechanism which gives life to digital currencies, such as bitcoin, and which secures them.
Under this impetus, the European Central Bank laid the foundations of a framework that would allow it, in the near future, to launch a digital currency that it would supervise, as it already does with the paper euro.
Except, there you go. Some politicians fear the excesses of a centralized digital currency. It’s a conspiracy, they argue. The digital euro is a way for the European government to control the population, they say. The State will know everything about your most scandalous online transactions!
In short, they are scary. For not much, assure the promoters of the digital euro. “They use words like ‘control’ and ‘surveillance’. They also accuse the digital euro of excluding marginalized groups,” says Anne-Sophie Gógl, board member of the Digital Euro Association. “We fear that this trend will have an impact after the elections: the digital euro could be used for disinformation purposes. »
Feeling like déjà vu…
Centralized or… privatized currency?
From Canada, what is happening in Europe is a bit like the world turned upside down: the Canadian Conservative Party, under the leadership of its leader, Pierre Poilievre, is not becoming the herald of digital currency in general and bitcoin in particular?
Not quite. After all, Mr. Poilievre has affirmed his disdain for the Bank of Canada, whose governor he would fire immediately if elected, he went so far as to promise.
The Canadian central bank is not as eager as its European equivalent to issue its own digital currency, but it is increasingly open to doing so… one day. It must be said that the movement has started almost everywhere in the world. In the United States, the Federal Reserve is also considering it. For Uncle Sam, it is a race against China in the domination of the digital economy, whose dollar standard – the reference currency – is not necessarily yet defined.
For consumers, the interest in a digital currency issued by a central bank is quite simple, the Fed noted recently. “It differs from existing digital currencies because it would be the responsibility of the central bank, not a private bank. » It would therefore be less sensitive to the ups and downs of the economy in general. A digital dollar would be less volatile than bitcoin and ethereum, whose value sometimes fluctuates depending on the mood of investors.
It would also speed up certain online transactions and be beneficial to the growth of the digital economy, where borders are no longer an obstacle to the consumption of goods and services of all kinds.
It would not be, the Fed promises, a totally centralized technology. Like paper money, the digital dollar would be issued by the central bank, but it would be up to the private sector to take care of it and offer the public digital wallets, credit, bank accounts and other financial tools.
“This model would make it easier to use existing privacy and digital identity management tools,” she says. It would achieve this balance between protecting consumer privacy and the transparency necessary to deter criminal activity. »