Latest / Stephanomics / Central Banks Wrestle With the Crypto Conundrum

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Central Banks Wrestle With the Crypto Conundrum · Stephanomics

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Money is not about technology. Money is essentially what we
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: have in our heads, the common understanding of what money is,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: as long as we agree on what it is, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that requires some kind of illegal framework. Hello and welcome
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the global economy to you,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and this week we're glimpsing the future of money, a
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: digital crypto future that in some ways it is already here.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Bitcoins the digital currency everyone's heard of. It's been around
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: since two thousand and nine, but there are now eight
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: thousand other cryptocurrencies out there are competing for your business.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: That explosion in crypto more than fifteen trillion dollars worth
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of transactions last year alone. Maybe based on twenty one
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: century innovations like the blockchain, but it feels a lot
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: like the nineteenth century wild West, exciting, uncharted territory, also lawless,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: full of snakes. If you don't trust banks or governments,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: it all sounds great. Central banks and regulators naturally have
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a rather different response. They want to bring order to
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the chaos, and they also, many of them, want to
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: compete with digital currencies of their own. At last count,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: more than a hundred central banks had either introduced a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: central bank digital currency or had plans to do it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I got to chair a fascinating discussion of the future
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: of money and central banks at a conference the other
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: day organized by the Bank of International Settlements, the Central
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Bank of Central Bankers. We had the governor of the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: first central bank to pilot its own digital cash, the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Swedish ricks Bank, the chief executive of one of Europe's
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: biggest banks, and a Yale University professor who's the academic
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: authority in this area. So if you if you want
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to actually understand what a central bank digital currency is
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and why on Earth we might want them, I urge
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you to carry on listening. But before we talk about
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the theory, a taste of what a i'fe lived in
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: crypto might be like in practice. Last year, Al Salvador
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: became the first country in the world to make bitcoin
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: legal tender. So Bloomberg Central America based reporter Michael McDonald
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: through his digital wallet in the suitcase and went to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: put that to the taste up for me. It's not
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: for me, you know why, because those of us who
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: don't know how to read, we're going to lose money.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: That was Maria or Billina, who runs a ribbed restaurant
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: in the town of Conchagua, El Salvador, or Billina, is
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: in her late seventies and stands over a pile of meat,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: waving a butcher's knife as she prepares the day's cuts
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: of beef. She says the learning curve is too steep
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and swears she'll never accept cryptocurrency as pay men. I
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: appreciate the visit, but for me, no bitcoin. The government
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: made a mistake with that. Unfortunately they have add advisors.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: That she's so downbeat on bitcoin is telling because Conchagua
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: happens to be where the Salvadoran government plans to build
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Bitcoin City, a city free of income and capital gains taxes,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: and where a nearby volcano will provide electricity for bitcoin minds.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: In September of last year, Al Salvador became the first
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender, so
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the digital currency can be used as an official means
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: of payment for goods and services. It is the biggest
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: test for bitcoin in its twelve year history, and the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: crypto world has watched closely to see how it all unfolds.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It's now February and I am here to test the system.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I jumped in my rent to car for a road
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: trip around the country to see how feasible it is
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: to pay for things like meals, hotels, and even a
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: game of pool using bitcoin. But things don't always go
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: as smoothly as hoped. Infection wasn't completed right now, it's
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: and then when they see that the transpection was committed,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: that's what happened. That's Natalia Abu lates she manages a
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: local Asian fusion restaurant called Bruto, which opened last year
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and accepts bitcoin. My bitcoin transaction isn't processing properly, so
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I ended up paying with a credit card. In fact,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: local businesses have reported lots of issues using bitcoin as
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: payment here, from slow internet speed and long delays in
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: transactions to volatile price swings in the digital currency mark.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: The escoar at National Car Rental in San Salvador tells
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: me the company still needs to upgrade its technology before
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: accepting it. Right now, our bitcoin app is going through
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: some minor adjustments, so at the moment we are not
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: using it. It's easier to use a credit card because
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: it is easier to charge the deposit and it makes
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: refunding the deposit much easier, Yeah, Ricardo Casta, you know.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Salvador based economists for the Central American Institute for Fiscal
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Studies said the nation's economy is largely made up of
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: small businesses, which has prevented widespread adoption of bitcoin as
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: legal tender. Large businesses, especially those in the formal sector,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: high percentage of them are accepting bitcoin. In the case
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of small business it's a much smaller percentage, especially considering
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the characteristics of the Salvadoran market, which is largely informal.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: About seven workers are in the informal sector. So for
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: those businesses, you might find a few that accept bitcoin,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: but the vast majority don't. If you go to buy
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: your morning French baguette, they won't be accepting bitcoin. If
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: you go to a PUPUSA, you might find one that
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: accepts it, but the most are not accepting it. There
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: are a few daring entrepreneurs who say bitcoin has been
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: good for business. Oscar Attilio Lopez sells peanuts alongside the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: highway near a town called Hikualisco, and he accepts bitcoin.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Standing outside his tin house with a dirt floor, he
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: said he even pays vendors in the cryptocurrency and has
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: made three hundred dollars speculating on price wings. I whip
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: out my phone and send him seven dollars worth a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: bitcoin for two bags of nuts. No, wow, he got
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: my seven dollars immediately. Lopez tells me he made a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: big sale recently and accepted bitcoin as payment instead of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: converting it to US dollars. He kept the payment in
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: bitcoin and wound up watching its value rise when he
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: withdrew the money from his checking account. He realized the
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: thrill of accepting the cryptocurrency. We've never had a problem
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: with it. It's so how fast it was, and that's
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: how fast it's usually is. You can find a few
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: other places that accepted near me. Not every one accepted,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: but there are a few. The will I got interested
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to cost the investment aspect called my attention. That's with
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: certain amounts he could make money, according through a price
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: of bitcoin. Back in San Salvador, Diego Medanda has been
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: speculating on cryptocurrencies for several years and even made enough
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: money on its appreciation against the dollar to expand his
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: small company. He imports jewelry and sells it at several
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: locations around the capitol. Cryptocurrency is the new option. It's
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: just one more currency. When I was younger, I lived
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: through a new currency when we switched from the clone
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: to the dollar, and this is exactly the same It
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: happened when we only used to use tangible currency, the dollar,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: and then started to introduce credit and debit cards, and
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: people found it improbable that their money could be on
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a little plastic thing. It was unthinkable to say I
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: have ten thousand dollars in my hand. Now we have
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: to convince people that we can say in my phone,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I have ten thousand in bitcoin, which is just a
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: new way to implement a new legal currency. So for
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: some in our Salvador, at least, this isn't such a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: new world after all. And several of the experts I
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: spoke to it that Bank of International Settlements event the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: other day said much the same thing. The technology may
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: be new, but this debate we're having about what money is,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: how we regulated, how we trust it, it's very old. Indeed,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: you're going to hear an edited version of that conversation
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: now featuring the governor of the Swedish Central Bank, Stephan Ingves,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the chief executive of Santander Bank, Jose Antonio Alvarez and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the Yale University Professor of Finance, Gary Gorton. Gary, I'm
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: going to sort of break a precedent. We often start
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: with the policymakers, but I think given the analysis that
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: you've done in this area and the contributions you've made,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I think it would be very useful to have you
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: setting a little bit of the landscape that we're seeing
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: that the change in payments around the world. But I
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: think particularly um what challenges and opportunities arise for central
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: banks out of this. So let me let me just
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: say two things. One is about a hundred years ago
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: or so, every sovereign state decided that the government should
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: have monopoly on the production of money, and the reason
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: was that only the government can provide a currency that
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: trades at par with no questions asked, and only the
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: government's currency is not subject to bank runs. So the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: question of whether we should have monopoly, whether states should
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: have monopoly of our money production has arisen again because
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: stable coins are a form of privately produced money, and
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: they've already have a foothold, and I think it's at
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: least in the US, it's too late to do anything
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  Speaker 1: about it until we have the next financial crisis. The
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: other thing I would say, and fortunately I think this
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: is not so controversial as it might have been, but
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: everybody has a seem now the importance of the global
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: financial plumbing was swift, and the U. S. Treasury was
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: using Swift data, you know, before all this to track
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: terrorists and so on. And that's going to change when
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: we moved to blockchain, say in ten years, when everything
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: is interoperable, the standards for how you get data are
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: going to be completely different. And I think central banks
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: have to be involved here to jointly decide what the
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: standards are going to be and to understand how the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: data is going to flow. And I think that's an
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: issue that's been overlooked and governor ingvis as. I mentioned
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: that the Risk Bank was very early, I think it
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: was twenty sixteen you announced that you would do that
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the pilot of the of the digital currency. How do
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: you think of your role as a central bank in
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: this in this landscape sort of both in terms of
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: your own intervention with the pilot, but also in potentially
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: regulating and moderating the kind of interventional innovation we're seeing
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: on the private space obvious to us, maybe earlier than
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: in some other places, that we needed to sort of
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: start thinking about these things because given the technological change
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: that was going on, people were just moving out of cash.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And then we sort of started thinking about it kind
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: of in a way that Gary just referred to, because
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: we started looking at what happened actually in the late
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, what was the process that produced the division
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: of labor, if I call it that, between the central
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: banks and what the private banks used. But we're doing
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: back then, and the basic starting point is very very simple.
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  Speaker 1: In the old days, everything was on paper. Now we're
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: moving into another world where nothing will be on paper.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Now when that technological change happens, would we like to
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: maintain roughly the same structure that has been established for
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: about a hundred hundred and fifty years ago in many
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: many countries, or should we just let it go? And
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: then we came to the conclusion that no, we should
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: not let it go, because that would imply that in
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: my country we would only have private sectre money available
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to the general public. And if history gives us any guidance,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: that's a bad idea, and all the more so in
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: a small, very very open economy where it's important, given
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: that we have our own field currency, that people actually
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: use that currency, because supposed we were just sitting with
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: our arms crossed, the whole thing moves into I don't
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: know what other other currencies. In that environment, you can
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: forget about monetary policy as we know it, because then
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: there is no way of increasing or reducing the supply
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: own money in the system, because people would start using
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: what I call o PM other people's money, and producing
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: money nowadays in a small central bank is actually a
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: competitive business. People never think about it in that way,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: but it actually it actually is. And that means that
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: what we do has to be from a transactions purpose efficient,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: and we need to ensure that we can maintain the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: exchange rate between central bank money and private sector money.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And if that exchange rate is not one to want,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: then with a fairly high likelihood, you end up with
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: serious problems in the system. And those were exactly the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: problems that we had in the eighteen hundreds when banks
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: issued all sorts of notes and coins on on their own,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and that it created all sorts of all sorts of problems.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: And that has to do with the fact that money
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: is not about technology. Money Essentially, what we have in
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: our heads, and then we need to agree on what
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: we're should have in our heads moving moving forward, and
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: then that speaks in favor of producing a central bank
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: digital currency. But having said that, I just don't expect
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: a CBDC to sort of outcompete, so to speak, private
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: sector money at all. It's a sort of it's it's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the final thing that you can provide on the public
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: sector side in order to ensure that the system is
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: is stabled. We've been around in sixteen sixty and had
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: we not changed the way we do business and the
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: way we do things time and time again, then of
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: course we have been out of this business a long, long, long,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: long time ago. And we started out back in the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds with twenty kilo copper coins. That's extremely inefficient,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and had we not gotten rid of the copper coins
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: moved into physical notes, then it would have been game
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: over a long long time ago. So now, given that,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: at least in my corner of the world, people are
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: earlier adapters when it comes to new technologies, and there
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: are probably earlier adapters because there is a fairly good
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: trust in what the government does. So if you're so
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: if you introduce new technological sort of things into into
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: our system. People tend to use them, and then it's
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: just it's our job to go with the flow. Well,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and I guess you have you have to say Sweden
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: was an early adopter when it comes to central banks
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: being being the very first. And of course you've also
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: you were able to solve some of these problems before
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: for other central banks who came after you. So I
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: guess in the world definitely as you ows you were
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: dead now, Jose Antonio, you are representing all of the
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: private financial system in this debate, so you better be good.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: But often the private sector view on this is quite different.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: There is sometimes a feeling, either explicit or beneath the surface,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that says central banks aren't the ones who are going
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: to be good at innovating, and they shouldn't be at
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the forefront of this development. We should be counting on
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the private sector to come up with all the right
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: solutions here, Um, how do you see that the comparative
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: advantages of the private and public sector here? The first
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: not you said, doesn't matter where the innovation comes from,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: as long as the good innovation that it's good for
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: the society as a whole. Doesn't mother it comes from
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the central ban of the private sector. I am not
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: going to make a distinction so into between who is
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: innovating whoever it is innovating, welcome, Okay, that's our approach um,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: particularly in any space where technology has changed. As Stephans before,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: we've been doing the things in a way for many
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: many years, and suddenly technology allows a more diverse, diverse ecosystem,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: particularly in the payments space. The payments space has been
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: in space where we used to have the bank's central
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: banks and a few other places. Suddenly we got on
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the back of the new technology, the tech companies in
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the space, the fintech in the space, in a world
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: that where the number of transations grew exponentially on the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: back of the new technology. Online and e commerce means
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: that the number of transations is growing exponentially year after year.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: So we have suddenly this and another future that is
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: quite interesting for a lot of business models. That is
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the data. So digital payments means that your capacity to
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: gather data that enrich a verety of business models is
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: another feature that came along. Yeah, So with this explosion
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: of the payments using the new technology, volument and I
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: think the public sector has a clear role here. The
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: first thing is we need to establish standards, standards on
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: what on first customer protection, second data security, their data sharing,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: for privacy, so this kind of things we need to
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: have standards. So innovation is good, but at the same time,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: if if we need to have you do an activity,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: you should have the same roles that other people doing
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the same activity, the same supervision if any. That has
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: been the role of the on the central banks. So
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the public sector has a role there. And finally we
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: have the crypto space. The crypto space I'm not referring
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: to the big coins and like and referring more to
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the stable coins, digital bonds and all these things, so
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: more kind of traditional means of payments where the shuttle
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: bunks need to have a potential regulations. If the banks
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: are going to have a financial city desire, going to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: have these crypto asis in the bounty, we need a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: well some potential approach in relation with those assets that
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: eventually eventually not there are payment means of payments today
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: carry and I'm sort of interested in you've given the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: historical parallel, which I suspect some of the sort of
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the fintech firms would would resent being classed along with
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the sort of the wild West years of private currencies
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in the US. But I think it's quite a powerful parallel. Um.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Do you see US regulators sort of coming towards a
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: consistent view on how these stable coins the outside of
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the central bank system should should be regulated and treated.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think they have come to a decision other
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: than that stable coin issuers are banks, and in terms
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: of service of a stable coin, say you can redeem
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: your coin on demand at par that's a bank. So
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the Treasury President's working groups said they're a bank, but
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: they didn't say anything else. Really, I think the issuers
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: of stable coins they understand that they have all these problems.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: They're trying to get some aneer of at ability by
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: getting you know, bank licenses, fintech licenses in various states,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: but those are not real bank charters and they don't
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: as Mr Alvaret said, there's no prudential oversight of these guys.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: So the top five stable coin prices all moved together,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: right the market can't even distinguish between them. So I
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: think I think eventually we're gonna have to say they're
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a real bank, and they have to be regulated as
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a real bank. And I mean this would really come
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: to a head if say JP Morgan issued it's a
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: stable coin, right, that would cause Congress to act right away.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: But you know then I don't think they're going to
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: do that. But I mean, I don't want to be
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: too pessimistic, but I think the stable coins are not
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: big now, but they will be big because lots of
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the problems with blockchain are being solved as we speak.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: It's becoming uh scalable. The problem is this interoperability with
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the current system, and the FED has resisted that they
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: won't give a master account to anybody who looks different
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: than a bank, and that would be one way to
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: get some oversight because you could have rules around you
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: know what you have to do to get a master account.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I think the FED on its own could address this,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: but I don't think they will. I think they want
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: to leave it to Congress. So so I make the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: react to this. Yeah, I still having the Museum of
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the Bank, some builders that were issued by bank or something.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: They're a hundred and sixty years ago when the bands
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the rag Bones were issuing their own currency. All of
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: them were preset as supposed to be preset as the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: currency in Spain at that time, all of them whereas
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: they were goings some cord, whereas they were goings in paper. Yeah.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: So when this became a monopoly for the reason and
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Stephan said, and became a monopoly because of the time,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and the reason was much more efficient. Yeah, So it's
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: not about the technology. The technology is there. As long
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: as the technology is all people problems, we should go
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and using it, but using a reasonable way that allowed
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: to preshare what do you say I wish I should
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: say a public good that is the financial stability. I
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: completely agree with Jose Antonio because as I started out saying,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: money is what we have in our heads. Money is
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: a common understanding of what money is as long as
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: we agree on what it is, and that requires some
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: kind of a legal framework, and without a legal framework,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you have nothing. So that's where the issue sometimes goes.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: In some sense, the way I'm thinking about it a
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: stray because clearly, if you come from the tech side,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: do you have not spent your days thinking about the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: legal aspects of what you're doing, And it's the legal
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: framework that defines what kind of a claim you do.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: You have or do not have. And that's really the
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: issue with with with stable coins because if the legal
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: framework is not there, but the fairly highlight nihood, a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: stable coin is an unstable coin, and you just don't
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: know what kind of a claim you ultimately have. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: that's not a good thing because if history gives us
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: any guidance, those type of constructions tend to collapse sooner
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: or later. And one one thing we do know is
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: that we human beings, we never learn if it's too
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: good to be true, Well that's the case, and you're
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: not with a problem sooner or later. So if you
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: create something which behaves like a bank, well then go
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and get yourself a banking license. I'm interested perhaps from
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Gary Gorton because of his historical perspective. We have said
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: that there's not always about the technology, and that these
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: issues come up again and again in different forms through history.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: But I guess one thing that one could say was
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: different about this about the potential of a central bank
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: digital currency would be the degree of information and the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: degree of knowledge that a central bank could have about
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: its citizens and all the transactions being undertaken by individual citizens.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Against that we have, you know, quite large suspicions around
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: government these days and concern around privacy. Do you think
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: that is one different element to this debate that central
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: banks are going to have to deal with the concern
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: about privacy. Absolutely. I mean there's there's two issues. One
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: issue is the central bank, you know, at least for
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: large transactions, needs to know the identity of those who
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: are transacting, right, And that's that's why swift data is important.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: But you can set a threshold and say transactions below
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: this number, you know, we don't care about you just
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: do all that anonymously. And then of course this threshold
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: is going to have to change because you know, if
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the system is efficient, you can break the big transactions
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and all these little transactions. So some arrangement about what
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: is going to be anonymous and what is not going
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to be anonymous is going to be required. But the
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: central bank has to have credibility in all this. I mean,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I think if you even say you know, we're going
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to have a negative interest rate, people are not gonna
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: want to use it, right, And we saw an Ecuador
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that their central bank digital currency completely failed because people
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: didn't thrust the central bank. That's absolutely at the core
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: of this. If we have a non central banker talking
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: about belief in central banks. That is a very appropriate
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: place for a BIS panel to end. Thank you to
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: all of you for an excellent, very high level debate.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: That's it for this week. We'll be back with more
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: on money and the real economy next week. In the meantime,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: check out the Bloomberg News website for more on all
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: of the stories featured today, and follow at Economics on Twitter.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Magnus Henryson, with special thanks
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: to Michael McDonald, Stephan Ingvers, Jose Antonio Alvarez, Gary Gorton,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Eugenia Sto Morales, Steve Matthews, and the Bank of International Settlements.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Mike Sasso is executive producer of Stephanomics and the head
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: of Bloombow podcast is Francesco Levi.