Why fear, paranoia and distrust swirl around CBDCs

Populists and conspiracy theorists are exacerbating public concern about retail CBDCs. What can central banks do about it?

Typing ‘central bank’ into Twitter’s search window can be a shocking experience. On the one hand, the site will return tweets from the European Central Bank, Bloomberg and the International Monetary Fund’s number-two, Gita Gopinath.

However, it will also return alarmist tweets about central bank digital currency. An April 18 post by Harris Samaras (@HarrisSamaras) can stand as an example:

“If you thought that the Vaccine Passports were a violation of your privacy, if you were worried that your

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