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A shopper pays cash for sales merchandise on Dec. 26, 2000 in Austin, Texas. The Federal Reserve is considering whether to adopt a digital version of the dollar, in what would amount to a fundamental rethink of our national currency.
Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Since its establishment as the country’s national currency, the dollar has undergone many updates and changes, but nothing compares to the proposal being debated today.
The U.S. is gingerly considering whether to adopt a digital version of its currency, one better suited for today’s increasingly cashless world, ushering in what could be one of the dollar’s most fundamental transformations.
In that scenario, the U.S. would not only mint the coins and print paper bills. It would also issue digital cash, or a central bank digital currency (CBDC), that would be stored in apps or “digital wallets” on our smartphones.
We could then use…