Digital Dollar Should Be 'Actively Explored,' Says Former CFTC Chairman
Maintaining users' privacy is a key design focus, according to Massad. "We're not China."
Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 1:05 p.m. UTC
![Timothy Massad, a former chairman of the CFTC](https://www.coindesk.com/resizer/hOYReGFR8Qp-wKuLC0CucUwMz6w=/567x530/filters:quality(80):format(jpg)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/R2MFZWD2NJGPLK6DCXCJXTJA5M.jpg)
A digital dollar should be "actively explored," former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Timothy Massad told CoinDesk TV.
- "I'm glad to see that the [Federal Reserve] is doing that," Massad said during CoinDesk TV's "First Mover" on Wednesday.
- He added there are multiple design choices and other issues to think about in terms of maintaining users' privacy, noting, "We're not China."
- Like almost all major economies, the U.S. is exploring the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), though for the time being all plans remain in the discussion phase.
- One potential design choice is for the Fed to build a digital dollar operating platform on which private institutions can build applications, Massad suggested.
- "That's attractive because innovation is always going to come more from the private sector than the government," he said.