As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) continues its effort to advance the technologies behind central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), some members of the crypto community have reacted strongly against the IMF's efforts to further the initiative.
In a CBDC policy roundtable on June 19, the IMF’s director of the monetary and capital markets department, Tobias Adrian, presented a new platform concept for cross-border payments. This includes a blueprint for a payment system that uses one ledger to record CBDC transactions. According to Adrian, the “XC platform” will have a single ledger where digital representations of central bank reserves in any currency can be exchanged.
While the IMF seemed very eager to share new development, the same cannot be said for many members of the crypto community: From interpreting the move as a “power grab” to claiming that no one wants centrally-controlled money.
The IMF is creating a global CBDC platform. Where central banks globally would follow the same regulatory framework. So, if you say the wrong thing in one country, you'll have nowhere to flee as they can switch your money off anywhere in the world in any jurisdiction.
According to a Reddit user, the whole project is just a new attempt by the IMF to gain more control, arguing that the organization is now using issues that they’ve “ignored for decades” like financial inclusion as a “Trojan horse” to push CBDCs forward. The Redditor wrote:
On Twitter, one person criticized the IMF’s latest move by saying that the new platform sounds very similar to a “sh*tcoin.” The Twitter user argued that governments or the IMF should not be able to decide on what "the best money is."
Related: Zimbabwe sells millions of gold-backed crypto
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