Insight - Central bank digital cash spooking shadow economy to crypto

Monetary authorities from Beijing to Frankfurt have over the past year accelerated plans for legal tender in digital format, in part to keep pace with the explosion of private sector crypto-coins and online payment systems of recent years.

IF central bank digital cash is to rapidly replace banknotes, a shadow economy worth trillions of dollars may creep deeper into the darkness.

A big issue for governments and central banks then is the extent to which it’s already going there – or whether the latest explosion in cryptocurrency values, for example, is at least partly pricing its imminent arrival.