Last week, I was picking up a prescription and some other items at CVS.
When it came time to check out, I didn’t reach for my wallet — I grabbed my iPhone.
Instead of swiping a credit card, I hovered my phone over the reader until the Apple Pay app on my phone buzzed and the credit card reader beeped.
I don’t remember the last time I paid with cash, especially in the age of the coronavirus. Experts warned us that handling cash from an infected person might make us sick.
And I’m not the only one not spending cash.
In the U.S., digital payments are expected to double in the next five years. In China, they’re expected to rise 150% in that same time period:
As payments increasingly become digital, the idea of a central bank printing cash sounds outdated.
That’s why in the past few weeks, central banks have moved even closer to issuing “central bank digital currencies” (CBDCs).
“COVID-19 will be remembered by economic historians as the event that pushed CBDC development into top gear,” said Benoit Coeure, the head of the Innovation Hub at the Bank for International Settlements.
China’s on verge of issuing a digital yuan, while the U.S. is looking at two different proposals for a digital dollar.
In this week’s video, I explain the importance of digital cash, and what it means for the cryptocurrency market:
Regards,
Editor, Automatic Fortunes