The Economist published some great coverage about this a couple weeks ago, along with the intersection of players like Stripe and PayPal. Their overall conclusi

The Economist published some great coverage about this a couple weeks ago, along with the intersection of players like Stripe and PayPal. Their overall conclusion is that governments have huge incentives to make their own central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Currencies are a major lever of control that governments use to run their countries. In small countries, foreign currencies like the US dollar are already used widely for their stability and ease in foreign trade. Imagine if this becomes digital with zero friction, and you can see how a country could lose all demand for its currency. Larger countries face a similar dilemma with Bitcoin. If Bitcoin is frictionless and reliable, demand for the dollar could drop in favor of Bitcoin, and again, the US government loses a major source of power. Or worse, imagine the digital yuan becomes the new global standard for trade and storing value among China’s new friends. The Economist’s original coverage also discusses the privacy and tax implications (China already experimented with programmable money that “expired” at a certain time, to make sure it was used for stimulating the economy). They also talk about how CBDCs could end banks, because there would be no reason for a layer between the central bank and individuals, and the impact this would have on lending. Overall a fascinating topic, and I recommend reading their coverage as a high-level broad introduction to a lot of interesting topics.