Ezechiel Copic and Celo Labs have introduced the idea of an alternative or modified CBDC.

Is China the new Spain? Let me explain. Until the 1850s, the major currency of the United States was not the US gold or silver dollar, but the Spanish Real also known as the Piece of 8.

As I am President of the Treasury Historical Association, I thought I would discuss this depiction of the U.S. Department of the Treasury Building that appeared on $10 notes from 1928 to 2000.

Consider this: "Competition from alternative currencies provides a safeguard against chronic inflation of the US dollar. With competition, consumers will seek out a currency which best maintains its value over time.”

Here in the United States, February 21 was Presidents' Day, which was originally the celebration of George Washington's birthday.

Attending the recent Banknote and Currency Conference as well as the Digital Currency Conference in Washington, DC, I gathered these takeaways on the status of cash and CBDCs.

Why is the US still printing $1 bills? Despite repeated attempts over the past 140 years, US consumers refuse to embrace the $1 coin. Meanwhile, Euros, Pounds, Francs, and most currencies only produce banknotes above the 5-unit denomination.

In concluding my review of the Project Hamilton CBDC white paper, I want to summarize the seven key results of the project as identified by the authors, which are enlightening.

A US Treasury official recently stated that stablecoins need to be treated as a payment medium and not as securities or digital assets.

The Project Hamilton CBDC system has two potential designs: the Atomizer and the Two-Phase Commit (2PC). I summarized the Atomizer in a previous post. This post is on the 2PC, which consists of transaction COORDINATORS and SHARDS.

The belief arose in the late twentieth century that only criminals use high-denomination banknotes. To a certain extent, I think this has spilled over into crypto.

Following up on the Hamilton Project CBDC reporting, here is a summary of how a transaction is executed.

Let's remember that time when Canadian banknotes almost changed US banknote design.

I am in the process of reading the Hamilton Project whitepaper for a US CBDC, and so far, I am struck by how much thought is being put into creating private or anonymous transactions. Here’s what I have gleaned so far.

Who remembers when US Treasury securities went digital? Not many of us, because it happened around 50 years ago. So, should we be surprised at the idea of currency going digital? Here's the story.

Spencer M. Clark, a minor government official, pictured on this note, changed US banknote design forever in 1866. In that year, he put his own picture on an official piece of US currency, causing an uproar in Congress.

The Digital Euro is a legal obligation, according to an article by three law professors in the Journal of Financial Regulation.

Here is a banknote gifted to me by my German grandfather. It is a Reichsbanknote, 1922 Third Series, from the German Weimar Republic. It was printed all in offset with some distributed fibers along one side of the note.

We talk a lot about the need for anonymity in transactions. But, there was a time when anonymity was the last thing you wanted.

For much of US currency history, you could pick what dollar currency you wanted to use based on its backing.

In the 1880s, for example, the US had four major types of currency: Silver Certificates, Gold Certificates, United States Notes, and National Bank Notes.