In 2020, digital currencies had been one of many hottest matters on the town. China was nicely on its option to launching its personal central financial institution digital forex, or CBDC, and plenty of different nations launched CBDC analysis tasks. Even Fb has proposed a worldwide digital forex, referred to as Libra.

Few eyebrows had been raised when the Boston department of the US Federal Reserve introduced a mission to analysis how a CBDC is perhaps technically designed. A hypothetical US central financial institution digital forex was hardly controversial, in any case. And the US couldn’t afford to be left behind.

How issues change. Three years later, the digital greenback—though it doesn’t exist——has turn out to be political purple meat, as some politicians label it a dystopian device for surveillance. And late final yr, the Boston Fed quietly stopped engaged on its mission. 

So is the dream of the digital greenback lifeless? Learn the complete story.

—Mike Orcutt

Introducing MIT Expertise Overview Roundtables

I’m excited to announce that MIT Expertise Overview is launching a brand new participatory subscriber-only on-line occasion sequence referred to as Roundtables. They’re 30-minute month-to-month conversations with our writers and editors aimed toward retaining you knowledgeable about rising tech like synthetic intelligence, biotechnology, local weather change and extra. 

The primary, on August 10, will function David Rotman, MIT Expertise Overview editor at massive, in dialog with editor in chief Mat Honan, and so they’ll be discussing AI’s influence on the economic system. The second, on September 12, I (Charlotte, our information editor!) can be chatting with Melissa Heikkilä, our senior reporter for AI, a few matter she has baggage of perception into: How ought to we regulate AI?