Central Bank Digital Currencies and the Proliferation of Digital Assets

This commentary proposes to address questions raised by projects to establish central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), in response to the contributions to the book edited by Filippo Zatti and Rosa Giovanna Barresi and titled ‘Digital Assets and the Law’. The first question concerns the relation between CBDCs and notions of state sovereignty and the public good. The second question concerns the relation between money and data in a context where technological companies increasingly influence the role of banks in credit distribution and monetary creation. The third question concerns the place of CBDCs in global hierarchies.