Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman Christopher Giancarlo presented a detailed look into his Digital Dollar Project at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The Digital Dollar Project aims to encourage the launch of a central bank digital currency in the United States, according to Giancarlo, who is currently one of the founders of the project.
“We seek to encourage the next major innovation in [United States] currency: a tokenized fiat currency issued by the Federal Reserve System,” said Giancarlo. “A new digital form of the dollar that, alongside traditional fiat coins, bank notes, and reserves, would enjoy the full faith and credit of the U.S. government as central bank money.”
Giancarlo’s comments come at a time when the European, Japanese, and Canadian central banks are grouping to study the prospects of launching virtual currencies in their countries individually.
The Digital Dollar Project was announced last week as a partnership between consultancy company Accenture and the Digital Dollar Foundation (DDF).
The other founders of the DDF include another former CFTC official Daniel Gorfine and Pure Storage CEO Charles Giancarlo, who is also a former Cisco Systems executive.
Giancarlo said that such a digital dollar would be distributed through commercial banks and other trusted payment processors. The former CFTC chairman also added that typical risks associated with such virtual currencies could be mitigated “by channeling a digital dollar through the U.S. banking system,” according to The Block.
The idea seems similar to the People’s Bank of China’s CBDC that will reportedly be distributed through commercial banks and financial technology companies such as Alibaba Group Holdings’ Alipay and Tencent Holdings’ WeChat.
Accenture’s shares closed 0.12% higher at $209.41 on Wednesday.
This story originally appeared on Benzinga.
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.