China is on course to become the first country to roll out a digital version of its currency, our Daniela Cambone speaks with best-selling author Gordon Chang about the significance and importance of the move. “This is not a cryptocurrency— this is a central bank currency, which means the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will know how people are using it. It is basically totalitarian control,” Chang explains.
Digital currency can be either free market or centralized. Any currency advocated by a central bank, whether communist or not, is centralized and just as much a fiat currency as paper money is.
Free market crypto is essentially crypto that can be mined by anyone, at least in theory, and the mining effort ensures supply is limited. Centralized crypto has an monopolizing issuing source that can usually create more of the coin at will, with the push of a button, pretty much what the fed does with the dollar.
CB's think they can compete with free market cryptos like bitcoin and still retain their control of the economy.