Will Britcoin turn out to be a major success?

 

The former Greek minister of finance, Yanis Varoufakis, has found a great avenue for his anti-capitalist economist ideas. His novel Another Now presents a rather interesting (yet not so distant from reality) utopia. It’s an alternative universe, where the stocks have been abolished, and the finance is fully democratized.

Every citizen is entitled to receive the monthly allowance under the name of “personal capital”. It is administered by the central bank, which is also holding all the accounts. The money is administered digitally, and the whole system is transparent by all means. It totally bypasses retail banking, and the commercial interests of financial institutions are fully derailed.

Varoufakis’ vision of society and the financial system may be closer than we think. The United Kingdom has recently joined the race to develop a sustainable CBDC (central bank digital currency). The special task force has been announced at the United Kingdom’s Fintech Week conference. Their goal is to fully engage in working out the benefits, practicalities, and risks of the project, and thus reaching the safest and most trustworthy solutions.

What is the Britcoin, then?

This certainly is big of a challenge for people behind it, as they do not really have a proper reference to work with. The only two working CDBCs do not represent the ideas that the UK’s taskforce will have to meet. The first CDBC operates in Barbados, and is the digital version of the “Sand Dollar”. Its main purpose is for the government to be able to transfer the money quickly between the islands. The other digital currency is the Chinese Yuan, but it’s currently still piloted.

There is nothing peculiar in the fact, that UK will be proceeding with caution. The whole endeavor will prioritize wholesale over retail, which will be a great foundation for future developments.

To read about the future of the project, find a brilliant Oliver Rhodes’ Disruption Banking piece: https://disruptionbanking.com/2021/04/28/full-fat-high-caffeine-maximum-strength-britcoin/.