I would think digital dollar is a very positive development for crypto world. I would be more comfortable if I could day trade crypto, for example, but then move my money to digital dollar for “safe” keeping. Doesn’t detract from Bitcoin and it’s promises as far as I can see.
@johnarb, what do you think?
The digital dollar is NOT the same as cryptos like bitcoin and Ethereum. Make no mistake about it.
1. In cryptos, we the people are the owners and we control the coins, supposedly. We issue the coin, control its quantity, its value, how it's going to be used and etc., supposedly. With the digital dollar, the government is in charge. They are the ones who control everything just like how they control the fiat. They issue the coins, they control the quantity, they set the value and mostly they dictate how it's used just like fiat. In fact, it is fiat but in digital form.
2. Digital dollar is not "safe" or any safer. In fact it's even worse than fiat or cryptos. Because it's in digital form, now it's lot harder or almost impossible for us to have privacy or anonymity. Now if we want to have privacy when we want to get our voice heard or escape from an abusive partner or parents, we can use cash or crypto and nobody can track us. With the digital dollar, if it's adopted as the only legal tender, no matter where you are, they will always know where you are. Imagine you are Edward Snowdon who just discovered something despicable that the government has done and you don't agree to that and you want the whole world to know about it. Now you can still use cash or crypto to finance your escape and hide while you get your stories published. With the digital dollars, they know where you are instantly unless you are able to get help from people without spending anything but if you want to be like Jason Bourne or Rambo to have your own freedom, you won't be able to anymore. You will never be off the grid anymore. It's even worse if you are, let's say, a child running away from an abusive family, you won't be able to at all with the digital dollars while before with paper fiat or crypto, at least you had a chance.
3. The digital dollars are also allowing the government to set its value lot easier than with paper fiat or cryptos. With cryptos, of course, supposedly if ONE coin is adopted as the only legal tender, then its value is finite and supposedly be controlled by a certain process not manipulatable by anybody. With paper fiat, the government needs to at least have an independent governing body like the Federal Reserve to set a whole bunch of monetary policies to affect the value of the fiat. Now with digital dollars, all the government needs to do is enter a number and/or push a button, done the value is set. And what's worse they can customize the value of digital dollars for certain individuals. You think you have $1000 digital dollars? If the government believes that you don't deserve to have it because you wrote a post criticizing the government, with digital dollars, they can go in and set it to zero. Your money is gone in an instant because it's not real money; it's just a number that exists in the virtual world on servers controlled by the government. They can set it to whatever value they want and you will have no choice but to adopt it because it's the only legal tender; everybody has to use it. With cryptos, it's also a number that exists in the virtual world but no one is able to go in and erase it at all (except now unfortunately with flawed systems and lack of overseeing) at will while the digital dollar, the government can do so.
This is why I feel, digital dollars is the worst type of currency we can have with all the benefits to the government for tighter control over us and us the people losing everything especially the tiny bit of freedom and liberty that we still have and with zero price stability or store of value like paper fiat. In fact the digital dollar is really just digital fiat with all of our freedom and liberty sacrificed. Is it any surprise that the concept of digital currency is invented by the CCP, one of the most authoritarian government regimes in the world? The digital dollars have no benefits for us except maybe some savings in transaction fees which is really minimal if you look at how much we are going to end up losing.
In conclusion, I believe unless crypto can be developed and regulated to overcome the many flaws of paper fiat, paper fiat is really still the best currency system that we have. Given the amount of ownership and freedom that we can have with crypto implemented though, I don't see the government ever wanting to make any efforts to regulate it and that's the problem but digital dollars is not the solution or better replacement of crypto. Just because something is "virtual" or "digital" doesn't always mean it's better.
