The objective of the Project is to encourage research and public discussion on the potential advantages of a digital dollar, convene private sector thought leaders and actors, and propose possible models to support the public sector. The Project will develop a framework for potential, practical steps that can be taken to establish a dollar CBDC.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has collaborated with software major Accenture to accelerate the development of United States Central Bank Digital currency CBDC through a project dubbed as Digital Dollar Project.

The Digital Dollar project will outline the architecture for steps to be taken to build the CBDC. It will further propel the research through public discussions on the future advantages of the digital dollar in the private sector. It will propose feasible models to support the public sector as well.

The initiators of the Project

The visionaries behind the project involve the J Christopher Giancarlo, (Former. Chair of CFTC), Charles Giancarlo and Daniel Gorfine (Former Director of LabCFTC and Chief Innovation Officer of the CFTC.  

Christopher Giancarlo was retired from his deputation as chair of the Commodity Future Trading Commission (CFTC) last year. He then founded the Digital Dollar Foundation along with Charles Giancarlo as investor and Daniel Gorfine.

Digital Dollar Foundation is a non-profit organization that has been founded to launch the project. The foundation involves the Accenture as lead architect and Technology innovation partner.

Statement from Christopher Giancarlo:

Christopher Giancarlo commented, “The digital 21st century is undeserved by an analog reserve currency. Digital Dollar would help future-proof the greenback and allow individuals and global enterprises to make payments in dollars respective of space and time.

He further added, “We are launching the digital dollar project to catalyze U.S. currency that would coexist with other Federal Reserve liabilities and serve as a settlement medium to meet the demands of the new digital world and cheaper faster and more inclusive global financial system."

Cristopher Giancarlo said that Accenture has an impressive record of working in an innovative collaboration with Central banks. It has worked with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Bank of Canada, and Central Bank and very recently with Riksbank of Sweden which is the world's first Central Bank to sign a contract to develop the CBDC e- krona in a test environment. So these banks are the obvious choice to seek direction.

The project will comprise architectural designs and overall ideation from stakeholder meetings, forums, roundtable discussions for creating the digital dollar. It will further align with government policies and swill seek support from US Federal Reserve related projects and will focus on a few guiding features.

In the primary phase the project will consider initial ideations about the CBDC and will perform tests and evaluate the stakeholder's requirements and use case needs. The project will be in accordance with economic, legal, security, cultural and privacy aspects simultaneously fulfilling the needs of the global financial ecosystem and consumers. 

Senior Managing Director, and Global Blockchain Lead at Accenture, David Treat said that the Accenture is glad to have a partnership with the digital dollar Foundation and collectively working on a project will bring together a proficient multi-tasking community with real-world experience and advanced technological competencies. Digital currency is a solution for the modernization of financial systems and will bring economic and social improvement to bring new innovations.

What is Digitized Dollar?

This term ‘Digitized Dollar’ defines the dollar loosely as the dollars exist in digitized form in financial institutions as account balances in computer records. CBFC will further tokenize the dollar and will keep the records in a single ledger powered with blockchain technology with an encrypted security.

The dollar CBDC will be supported by the government and will have hassle free transactions in a digitized format similar to email. The blockchain technology will enable its incredible features to the digitized dollar such as more transparency, more security through P2P encryption, lower cost of transactions along with more efficiency in overall financial functions.

How the Project will Progress?

The project will seek opinions of the wide array from the diverse arena. It will consult top economists, business leaders, innovators, technology geeks, lawyers, consumes’ advocates, human rights campaigners, academics and ethicists.

The project will carve an architecture for examining and learning about dollar sustainability and will analyze the challenges involved while implementing its launch.

The developments on the projects will be monitored by the core body and the developments will be shared with key stakeholders

#CFTC #CryptoAssetRating #CBDC #DigitizedDollar #CAR #CAPP #DigitalDollarFoundation #Accenture 

Jayashree Ingle

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA