行政院前院長陳冲：面對主權貨幣CBDC 央行應正面接招

行政院前院長陳冲：面對主權貨幣CBDC 央行應正面接招

行政院前院長陳冲（本報系資料庫） facebook

行政院前院長、新世代金融基金會董事長陳冲今（5）日指出，面對世界研究中央銀行數位貨幣（CBDC）的風潮，我國中央銀行到了得正面接招的時候了。

陳冲指出，根據近日報導中的「央行指出」字眼了解，央行傾向由公私合作提供CBDC，央行更認為國際主要央行探索CBDC，不限於目前發展對支付系統與貨幣制度的威脅，還有爭奪金融霸權意味。換言之，我國既無意金融霸權，即無須發展CBDC，縱有必要，也可公私合作。

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陳冲認為，如果這是央行本意，身為國人也無話可說，但須指出CBDC是Legal tender，代表國家主權，在我國是否適合公私合作？ 央行自身對CBDC如有深入研究，是否更易於判斷合作對手的適當性？而且CBDC只是支付工具的一種，與其他支付業者的服務仍有區別，CBDC與一般紙幣、輔幣都可轉入電子錢包，是否有電子支付業者就可不要CBDC？

陳冲指出，今年2月27日至3月1日，經濟日報連三天刊出「迎接貨幣新紀元」的專題報導，距離他2006年2月提出的文章「貨幣由metal based到paper based，將來也會變成software based，恐須未雨綢繆」，恰恰好15周年，15年來歷經Smart phone誕生、App充斥、Blockchain轉型各個階段，他曾多次呼籲研議CBDC，今日自然樂見數位貨幣的浪潮狂湧未艾。

陳冲表示，15年來，CBDC已由「不值一哂」，到「各方矚目」，恐怕是央行必須正面接招的時候了。就連美國聯準會主席鮑爾也表示，「我不希望有一天醒來，發現美元已經不是世界儲備貨幣，其原因是我們剛剛錯過了一場技術變革」。台灣也許無意問鼎金融霸權，但鮑爾這一席話，還是可以參考。

陳冲強調，近日在市場上，許多加密貨幣價格劇烈起伏。加密貨幣不是幣，也許是commodity，也許是投資工具，但不是貨幣，更不是CBDC。至於穩定幣（stable coin），以Diem（前身為Libra）為代表，其與實體貨幣掛鉤，有電子商務為後盾，對現有體系比較構成威脅，德國財政部長（Olaf Scholz）在Libra改名為Diem後仍稱之為「披著羊皮的狼」，足見其威脅。其實在舉世央行矚目下，穩定幣勢必接受監管，野性將受馴服，出不了大亂子，充其量只是「披著狼皮的羊」。至數位主權貨幣（CBDC），一旦成功問世，在各國央行審慎規劃下，應該只是國民「錢包」中以「數位形態」出現的現鈔，是電子錢包中支付工具的一項，會大量減少輔幣（零錢）、現鈔的使用，如此而已。

陳冲認為，以數位方式發行主權貨幣，當然不是簡單的事，其中有技術面的考慮，還有政策面、金融面的考量。CBDC如果發行，應不會全面發行，一方面各國央行總會避免劇烈衝擊金融體系，一方面要讓金融機構放心，最重要的是央行也不願失去中介機構的緩衝。陳沖建議先從最底層的小額交易進行試驗，就是此一意旨。

What Happens if All Stablecoin Users Have to Be Identified?

Imagine the following scenario: Sometime in 2021, financial regulators declare that all stablecoin owners must be verified. What would happen to the cryptocurrency ecosystem?

Right now, a large chunk of stablecoin usage is pseudonymous. That is, you or I can hold $20,000 worth of tether or USD coin stablecoins in an unhosted wallet (i.e., not on an exchange) without having to provide our identities to either Tether or Circle, the managers of these stablecoin platforms. We can send this $20,000 along to other users, who can transfer the coins on, who in turn can transfer them on, and no one along this chain needs to unveil themselves.

J.P. Koning, a CoinDesk columnist, worked as an equity researcher at a Canadian brokerage firm and a financial writer at a large Canadian bank. He runs the popular Moneyness blog.

The only point at which stablecoin users have to submit to a Tether or Circle know-your-customer (KYC) process is to redeem stablecoins directly for traditional bank dollars. Or vice versa, to deposit dollars with Tether or Circle and get freshly minted stablecoins.

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In a world where traditional non-blockchain based financial institutions like PayPal, Chase, and Zelle link all payments to names and addresses, stablecoin networks have become a rare moat of digital payments privacy. This has led to some fairly exotic uses for stablecoins.

In Moscow, Chinese gray market clothes vendors trade cash for tether to repatriate profits, writes CoinDesk’s Anna Baydakova. Ukrainian companies that import from Turkey use tether to skirt foreign exchange controls, and a multi-million Ponzi scheme relied on Paxos standard (PAX) for payments. Meanwhile, in the world of decentralized finance (DeFi), unidentifiable computer programs are conducting billions of dollars in unregulated financial transactions using USD coin and other stablecoins.

But will regulators allow this privacy moat to continue to exist? What if, at this very moment, officials working for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the U.S. Treasury’s money laundering watchdog, are plotting how to rein in stablecoin pseudonymity?

Let me speculate about how a potential unveiling might look.

FinCEN could rule that henceforth, if anyone wants to access tether, USD coin, or any other official stablecoin (TrueUSD, Paxos standard, Gemini dollar, Binance USD, HUSD) they will need to apply for a verified stablecoin account. That would mean providing photo ID, proof of address and other information to Tether, Circle or other issuers.

For many existing stablecoin owners, this won’t be a big deal. Professional arbitrageurs who use stablecoins to move value from one centralized exchange to another are probably already KYC’d. And retail clients who keep their stablecoins on an exchange like Binance wouldn’t see any changes because the exchange already verifies their identities anyways.

But given that every transfer would need to have names and addresses associated with it, an unveiling would certainly weigh on gray market uses such as the Chinese traders in Moscow.

With stablecoins getting bigger by the day, regulators probably can’t ignore the issue of pseudonymity forever.

The issuers themselves would be inconvenienced, too. Building infrastructure to collect and verify the identity of all users, and not just the few who redeem or deposit, is expensive. To recoup their costs, issuers like Tether and Circle may consider introducing fees. All of this could render stablecoins less accessible for people who only want to use them for casual remittances.

It is in the world of DeFi that the fallout of a stablecoin unveiling could be felt the most. Real people who own stablecoins can be easily identified. But in DeFi, stablecoins are often deposited into accounts controlled by bits of autonomous code, or smart contracts, which don’t have any underlying owner. It’s not evident how a stablecoin issuer can conduct KYC on a smart contract.

Maker, one of the most popular decentralized tools, contains $350 million USD coins in various user-created vaults. This hoard of stablecoins serves as collateral backing for dai, Maker’s decentralized stablecoin. Another $130 million USD coin is held in a Maker’s peg stability module smart contract. If all stablecoin owners must be identified, it’s not apparent who or what entity would have to undergo a KYC check for this $130 million.

Compound, another popular DeFi tool, currently holds $1.6 billion USD coin and $350 million tether. Lenders can deposit their stablecoins into Compound smart contracts and collect interest from borrowers who draw from the contracts.

Liquidity pools, smart contracts underpinning decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and Curve, also hold large amounts of stablecoins. Curve liquidity pools currently contain $1.25 billion worth USD coin and $450 million worth of tether.

See also: JP Koning – What Tether Means When It Says It’s ‘Regulated’

Under the strictest scenario, stablecoin issuers could be required to cut off any entity that can’t provide a verified name or address. Which means Curve, Maker, and Compound smart contracts would all be prevented from receiving stablecoins.

Given the ecosystem’s reliance on stablecoins, this would come close to breaking it. Compound, Curve and Uniswap might try to adapt by substituting FinCEN compliant stablecoins like USD coin with decentralized ones, say like Maker’s dai stablecoin. Because decentralized stablecoins don’t rely on traditional banks, they are less beholden to FinCEN dictat.

But remember, Maker relies on USD coin collateral to imbue dai with stability. If Maker, like Compound and Curve, can no longer hold USD coin, then dai itself would become less stable. And so the usability of Compound and other protocols relying on dai would suffer.

If we imagine a more dovish scenario, FinCEN might allow for a smart contract exemption. As long as stablecoins are held in a smart contract rather than an externally controlled account, then FinCEN would allow the stablecoin issuer to provide financial services to the smart contract. Much of DeFi could continue on as before.

This option provides a pretty big loophole for bad actors, though. The whole reason for requiring platforms to verify accounts is to prevent them moving illicit funds. If stablecoins held in smart contracts are exempt from KYC obligations, then enterprising individuals will move stablecoins to the smart contract layer and thus stimie FinCEN controls.

A middle-of-the-road scenario is that FinCEN exempts smart contracts from stablecoin KYC, but only if the smart contract itself verifies the identities of all addresses that interact with the contract. So Curve, in this case, would have to set up a customer due diligence program if it wanted to qualify to use stablecoins. Maker would have to vet all vault owners.

Under this scenario, we could imagine DeFi splitting into two. Purely decentralized protocols would avoid stablecoins altogether to avoid subjecting their users to KYC. Not-so-decentralized finance would start to verify users to maintain access to stablecoins.

There are many other potential scenarios. As you can see, this is a complex problem. If FinCEN is indeed exploring the question of stablecoin pseudonymity, I wouldn’t want to be the official tasked with trying to design an appropriate response. Too strict and DeFi may no longer function. Too light and DeFi will continue to pose a money laundering threat.

Canadian bank plans to launch CAD stablecoin

Today, Canada’s VersaBank announced plans to issue a Canadian dollar stablecoin VCAD, one-to-one backed by a Canadian dollar deposit at the bank. If you haven’t heard of the chartered bank before, it’s because it’s not Canada’s biggest, with a market capitalization of CAD 288 million ($229 million). The bank also wants to leverage its own “digital bank vault” technology created by its subsidiary DRT Cyber.

To issue the stablecoin, it has partnered with Stablecorp, a joint venture between crypto asset manager 3iQ and Mavennet. The latter is known for developing blockchain applications for enterprises such as steel and oil traceability for the Canadian and U.S. governments.

VersaBank doesn’t intend to deal with end-users directly. Instead, it will issue stablecoins to “financial intermediary partners” in exchange for Canadian dollar deposits. In turn, those intermediaries can offer the redeemable stablecoin to consumers and businesses.

“As North America’s first bank-issued “stablecoin”, VCAD offers consumers and businesses the ability to adopt and leverage the benefits of digital currency and blockchain-based assets without the volatility of traditional currencies, alongside the security of a value-backed asset that the cryptocurrency world has long demanded,” said David Taylor, President of both VersaBank and its cyber security subsidiary, DRT Cyber.

VersaBank and StableCorp also plan to offer VUS and VEuro stablecoins in future.

StabeCorp’s CEO Jean Desgagne is an accountant and Vice Chair of Ontario’s accounting body. He also chairs the internal audit committee for the IT Sector of the Province of Ontario. StableCorp already has its own stablecoin, the QCAD.

Meanwhile, JP Morgan is looking to ramp up its JPM Coin activities. To date, the JPM Coin would be classed more as a settlement token than a pure stablecoin in that it is used to convert part of a company’s bank balance into a coin for the purposes of payments, and converted back to a bank balance by the recipient. JPM Coin is also being used in an interbank multi-currency payments network being developed in Singapore.