[saint_abroad]

> If they want to sit out the development of this new tech it just gives everyone else the advantage.

Au contraire-

China is leapfrogging Western Banking with the DECP "digital yuan", and Bitcoin is competition to state-sanctioned currencies (digital or otherwise). https://www.coindesk.com/china-is-opting-out-of-us-run-finan...

Any news of other Central Banks "contemplating" digital currencies is just their way of suppressing weeds (competition) it can be worked out how to do such without killing the golden goose that is the established banking system.

[StavrosK]

I don't understand what a centralized digital currency even means. All I can think of is "it's the same as the regular currency, except we don't issue cash because we hate cash because we can't track it as easily".

[jlokier]

It means:

- China controls the rate of issuance of coins, like a central bank, except it may be easier to mint coins as needed and direct them to a particular person or purpose.

- China has significant control over the exchange rate to other currencies, because it can limit activity of other exchanges.

- China controls the logic encoded in the coins, because digital coins are not like cash. For example, they are planning to program some coins to expire if not spent within a time limit.

- China can govern who is allowed an account and who is not, and can remove an account from someone if they choose.

- Above applies to business accounts as much as personal.

I think there's a good potential in "designed money", in particular with logic attached to the coins to influence how they are used and behave. But of all the governments in the world to deploy such a thing at scale, China is not high on my list of countries to trust, with their heavy emphasis on surveillance, control and worse if you're in the wrong group. Money is really central to people's lives.

[hparadiz]

Exactly this. Who cares if you have a digital currency if you control everything about it. At that point it's just fiat with extra steps.

Meanwhile they sit out the development of new tech like the 5G network being built by the Helium Network which uses HNT as the motivational driver to create a distributed decentralized network run by average people. These types of systems will become the norm in the next crypto wave.