State-Sponsored Cryptocurrencies Revisited

In a blog post earlier this week I briefly argued that “government-controlled cryptocurrency” was a contradiction in terms. It depends on what is meant by “cryptocurrency”, but now that I’ve done some more research on the subject I understand how a central bank could make use of blockchain technology and why the government would want to implement a type of cryptocurrency.

My understanding of the subject was improved by reading the white paper on the “Fedcoin” published a few months ago by Yale University. I also read about the difference between “permissioned” and “permissionless” blockchains. As a result, I now understand that a blockchain is a data structure that can be either distributed, as is the case with Bitcoin, or centrally controlled, as would be the case with a “cryptocurrency” issued by a central bank.

I also understand how the commercial banks could profit from the advent of a centrally-controlled cryptocurrency. This is an important consideration because the way the world currently works it is unrealistic to expect the introduction of a new form of official money that would result in substantially-reduced profits for the major banks.

The Fedcoin paper linked above lays out how a state-sponsored cryptocurrency could work. Here are some of the salient aspects:

1. The system comprises a central ledger of all transactions (the blockchain) maintained by the Fed, nodes (commercial banks) and users (anyone who wants to spend or receive a Fedcoin).

2. A user of Fedcoins must have an account at the Fed. Opening an account would involve providing the KYC (Know Your Customer) identity information that anyone who has dealt with a financial institution over the past few years would be familiar with.

3. Users would have digital wallets that held encrypted funds and all transactions would have to be digitally signed, so in this respect, the term “cryptocurrency” would apply. However, the Fed and the government would be able to determine the identity of the users involved in any/every transaction (due to item 2 above), so the encryption would not result in genuine privacy. Moreover, the government would have the power to “blacklist” a Fedcoin account, effectively freezing the account.