Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Digital Dollar To Be ‘In Competition’ With Bitcoin

Digital Dollar To Be ‘In Competition’ With Bitcoin

The former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, has said bitcoin and Facebook's libra cryptocurrency may eventually be "in competition" with central bank digital currencies...
While the U.S. has barely even begun thinking about a digital dollar, its potential implications have generated extensive debate, with a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, saying bitcoin and Facebook's libra cryptocurrency may eventually be "in competition" with central bank digital currencies.

"I would like to think that [bitcoin and libra] are also in competition with the central bank digital currency," Rajan, who served as the International Monetary Fund's chief economist before taking the top job at India's central bank, told CNBC’s Beyond the Valley podcast this week.

Central bank digital currencies, sometimes referred to as CBDCs, are expected to work just like regular coins and notes issued by central banks but exist entirely online, with the U.S. Federal Reserve potentially issuing digital dollars via Fed accounts.

Gabriel Abed, the leading digital dollar expert in the world says Bitcoin is deflation based. The USD is inflation based. The two will compliment the perceived deficiencies of the other.

The race to create a working central bank digital currency was kick-started by Facebook's announcement of its libra cryptocurrency last year, however the social media giant was forced to curtail its ambitious plans after central bank governors around the world balked at the idea.

"The worry with libra was that, in its early forms, it was on the one hand very ambitious in what it wanted to do but very vague in what the safety precautions would be," Rajan said, explaining Facebook wanted to "become a world currency" without telling anyone how data would be protected or what safety mechanisms it would use.

"That's the worst possibility for central bankers: something that's going to take over the world but we have no strong confidence in that risks would be contained."

Rajan expects competition between central banks will drive CBDC development over coming years, with countries worried rival currencies might displace their own if they don't keep up—but private currencies such as bitcoin and libra will continue to exist.

"Different private currencies will do different things and it may be bitcoin has value going forward just as a store of value," Rajan said, with Facebook's libra perhaps used for "transacting" while bitcoin is used as a "speculative asset," similar to gold.

This is a view echoed by many in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency community, with bitcoin investors often championing it as "digital gold" and investors increasingly flocking to bitcoin in times of heightened risk.

"CBDCs and bitcoin represent opposite ends of a spectrum—from centralized extensions of the legacy financial system to a trustless, decentralized alternative that derives value from broad consensus," Diogo Monica, president and co-founder of Anchorage, a cryptocurrency custodian and member of libra's governing council, the Libra Association, said via email.

"While competition is inevitable, it won’t be winner-take-all," Monica added. "We’ll likely witness the adoption of multiple assets all along the spectrum based on their utility, as well as other geopolitical factors."

Rajan also expressed concern that CBDCs could result in government overreach—something else that bitcoin supporters argue cryptocurrencies help to offset.

"The beauty of the cash in our hands is that it's anonymous," Rajan said, asking, "even if you're not doing anything illegal should the government know the details of every transaction you make?"
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×