Every time you spend money via a payment card network, or do a SEPA transfer, you are interacting with (digital) private bank money. Private bank money is equi

Every time you spend money via a payment card network, or do a SEPA transfer, you are interacting with (digital) private bank money. Private bank money is equivalent to cash printed by the state or held in the central bank accounts, however it can be created out of nothing by the banks as liabilities on loaned cash (private fractional reserve banking leads to inflation of the private monetary base). As long as people can pay their debts, the carnival ride continues. The state has requirements of the banks to store a fraction of their reserves. The state wants to maybe one day stop printing physical cash money, but also does not want private banks to control the production of money entirely-- so they create a psuedo-cryptocurrency in which the state can issue tokens. This ideally provides a cash like experience with the easy of use of private digital payment schemes. We call these "Central Bank Digital Currencies" or CBDCs. What does this mean in practice? The state has visibility of all monetary transactions in real time, and can enforce their own fiscal policies (such as negative interest rates, the money will melt in your phone if it is not spent). It is awful, and we should reject state issued digital currencies. Buy bitcoin (before it is too late!).