Japanese Government Calls for Fast Adoption of CBDC

Despite the financial shock caused by the outbreak of coronavirus, countries continue to consider creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC). A japanese politician of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and key figure of Abenomics, Kozo YAMAMOTO, said Japan should adopt the CBDC as soon as possible.

Yamamoto noted that the digital yen can act as an intermediate currency between other digital currencies. Even if Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon (GAFA) issue their own tokens, they will be used within a certain framework and will not interact with each other. He believes that CBDC will help fill this gap and it will be much more convenient for customers.

In his opinion, large corporations such as Facebook should have the opportunity to issue their own tokens and control a “medium of exchange and store of value”. However, the “unit of account" must be controlled by the government. Otherwise, people will forget about the traditional fiat currency, Yamamoto believes. He also added:

“We must protect it (the role of a unit of account) no matter what. If Japan doesn't issue a digital currency and people in the world use other digital currencies, the Japanese yen will be forgotten and lose its sovereignty.”

Image courtesy of Blockchain.news