A transition from the current monetary system of cash and bank accounts in the U.S. to an all-digital system. Many people claim that not if, but when, the government switches to a central bank digital currency (CBDC), cash will not be legal or accepted by bona fide retail outlets in the future.
Is Surveillance the Goal?
There are people who claim that the digital dollar will be
programmable and trackable. In such a case, the digital dollar could turn the U.S. into a surveillance state that could force people to comply with government regulations. Others claim that is nonsense, and the U.S. digital dollar, which is a central bank digital currency (CBDC), is not a blockchain-based system where each dollar could be a unique token like an NFT. See
NFT.
Project Lithium
In 2022, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) began to examine the impact of digital money for the U.S. Project Lithium was created to explore how a CBDC issued by the Federal Reserve will interact with the clearing and settlement infrastructure of the U.S. financial system. See
CBDC.