Congress Flirts With Digital Dollar; Crypto’s Hi
Post# of 27044
Mar 29, 2020,09:25am EDT
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cryptoconfidenti...1a4032633d
DIGITAL DOLLAR CONSIDERED
The crypto community was abuzz Monday night when a leaked draft of the economic stimulus bill proposed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi introduced a “digital dollar” as a way to deliver payments directly to U.S. citizens. The next day, the same language surfaced in a Senate bill introduced by Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown. The concept would have required the Federal Reserve’s member banks to open and maintain digital dollar wallets for all customers.
The digital dollar didn’t make it into the final stimulus package passed by Congress by the end of the week, but the flirtations signaled that the U.S. has officially entered an increasingly heated race between advanced projects at several central banks around the world to be the first to issue this new kind of currency. A project managed by the Hyperledger consortium called eThaler that aims to create a central bank digital currency on the Ethereum blockchain suddenly took on more importance.
CRYPTO MARKETS
The digital dollar murmurs put a charge in bitcoin Monday, as prices rose 15% in a 24-hour period, peaking just short of $7,000. The momentum died down as bitcoin traded in a narrow band the rest of the week, though the $2 trillion stimulus package has made some industry veterans bullish for cryptocurrencies, expecting cash to decline in value with trillions about to get pumped into circulation.