CryptoDad

Chapter 16 Digital Dollars

Discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

—Marcel Proust (novelist), Remembrance of Things Past

Fight for the Future of Money

I am writing this final chapter in June 2021 just after giving formal testimony before Senator Elizabeth Warren and the Economic Policy Subcommittee of the Senate Banking Committee. Having testified in front of Congress thrice before joining the CFTC, around a dozen times during my term of office and, now, four times since departing, this latest hearing felt familiar, almost routine. Still, it marked an important milestone along another unique journey since returning to the private sector.

This new endeavor began almost two years before. Not long after handing over the keys to the CFTC chairman's suite, my two sons and I departed the District of Columbia bound for a short driving and sailboat vacation around the Chesapeake Bay. Along the way to board our charter, we took a side trip down Virginia's Yorktown Peninsula. Our destination was the battlefield where George Washington's Continental Army and Comte de Rochambeau's French force drove the surrender of General Cornwallis's British regulars, spawning American independence.

My mobile phone rang. I answered on the car's hands-free speaker. It was my brother Charlie. After some warm greetings to me and the boys, he asked if I had given any thought to central bank digital currency, or “CBDC” as it was known.

I had indeed. My view was simple ...