If something gets tremendously trendy, what do we do? We actually want to grab it with both our hands before others.
A similar fashion is going on at the level of governments this time. One after another, they are coming out with their own CBDCs in the hope to fight with decentralized money.
Their hope is however just a hope and will remain the same. Mostly because of the fact that with CBDCs, they aren't building anything special. In fact, CBDCs are just another form of cash bills with the same properties. The only difference is that CBDCs are digital.
Additionally, if somebody thinks they will be an alternative to other digital payments methods, again there's little to no hope. For example, UPI in India has been so successful that nobody wants to complicate it with CBDCs. Now when people have learnt to use UPI at vast scale, I doubt they would want anything further than that.
While India and China are sponsoring and marketing their CBDCs with great enthusiasm, the people seem generally uninterested in CBDCs. US and Eurozone haven't launched their CBDCs till now, and I highly suspect that they would be dead upon their arrival. Nigeria's CBDC project is the recent example and @south_korea_ln has recently talked about it here #480644
As, it's quite evident that CBDCs are state's reply to Bitcoin or other decentralized currencies, it's like a fool's reply. Why would anyone adopt a currency which is much the same as cash prints and other already established digital payment methods? In a world where the demand for decentralization and privacy is growing rapidly with every passing day, CBDC dream is a nightmare.
What do you say?

Are CBDCs different than paper cash?

Are CBDCs better than already established digital payment methods?

Will CBDCs ever come closer in competing with Bitcoin or any such decentralized money?

55 sats \ 1 reply \ @jgbtc 26 Mar
I remember pre-bitcoin, there was talk about war on cash, cashless society, etc. We were heading towards CBDCs, although nobody called them that back then. Fortunately, inherently inefficient government moves very slow and Satoshi was able to drop Bitcoin first. It's been fun watching them pointlessly scramble to regain the advantage since then. But we would be fucked without Bitcoin.
reply
Even if the CBDCs have originated much before 2009, they stand no chance in front of Bitcoin.
reply
They're the same crap, only now they'll have everything better monitored and you'll have even fewer freedoms
reply
Ye they're.
reply
Still fiat, right?
reply
No, not really. Just because I'm in India and the government has suppressed the urge for Bitcoin here by imposing 32% tax. People like me know that this is bullshit and they can never tax me but most people think that government has killed the notion of Decentralized money.
reply