Tuesday, April 23, 2024

takeaways from Russia's CBDC

“The street finds its own uses for things.” – William Gibson ||

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all doing well! Today I do a deep dive into the Russian CBDC project, and the takeaways it has for CBDC exploration around the world.

If you find this newsletter useful, would you mind sharing it with your friends and colleagues? ❤

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• Takeaways from Russia’s CBDC project

• Inflation heading up

• Yet Econ Twitter is optimistic

If you’re not a subscriber to the premium daily, I hope you’ll consider becoming one! You’ll get ~daily insight into the growing overlap between the crypto and macro landscapes, as well as some useful links, and (usually!) access to an audio read of the content. And there’s a free trial!

WHAT I’M WATCHING:

Takeaways from Russia’s CBDC project

Russia’s CBDC project is now more a question of when than whether. Earlier this month, the head of the central bank confirmed a concrete estimate of a launch timeline, with the platform going live for mainstream transactions next year.

There are three relevant stories behind this. One is the official focus on a retail CBDC, when you would think a cross-border CBDC would be more urgent given the impact of sanctions on Russian banks’ ability to make and receive trade payments. Another is the success so far of the West in thwarting attempts to use digital currencies to get around sanctions. And a third is the potential substitution of other types of digital assets for fiat in order to circumvent restrictions.

(photo by Michael Parulava on Unsplash)

Let’s start at the beginning: