Summarised by Centrist
The Daily Sceptic recently linked the CrowdStrike debacle to potential Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) failures. While there are valid arguments against CBDCs, claiming that an offline CBDC system would halt all transactions is incorrect.
Chief among those reasons according to Anonymous IT Reporter is that we don’t know the exact CBDC system architecture because it hasn’t been designed yet.
Furthermore, when it is operational, it will manage only CBDC transactions.
CBDCs are proposed as an alternative to physical cash, particularly for online transactions. Physical cash currently accounts for about 11% of consumer spending, with the remaining 89% involving cards, gift cards, and bank transfers, which won’t be affected by a CBDC system. High-value transactions are handled by CHAPS, which was down recently but did not halt all transactions or disrupt the economy.
“Dear reader, if you take nothing else away from this article, remember that just because it has a pound sign in-front of it does not mean it would be controlled by any future CBDC system. This is why there is little to fear from CBDCs. If you still oppose them if they ever come to fruition, just don’t use them, there are dozens of alternatives,” writes Anonymous.
Like other electronic money systems, CBDCs may face issues, but financial transactions often have alternative settlement methods.
The CrowdStrike incident was a severe failure in corporate IT, but a CBDC system would be classified as Critical National Infrastructure, subject to high levels of resilience planning and reliability. Thus, there is little reason to fear that CBDCs will collapse the economy.
Anonymous suggests that the real debate about CBDCs should focus on their structure and implementation, not unfounded fears of total economic disruption.
