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I moderated a couple of sessions on offline central bank digital currency (CBDC) at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) DC³ From Cryptocurrencies to CBDCs​​ Conference on January 27, 2023. The first session was on the importance of offline payments for CBDCs and financial inclusion at which cases were presented by Lars Hupel (G+D), Razvan Dragomirescu (WhisperCash), Joachim Samuelsson (Crunchfish) and Jerome Ajdenbaum (IDEMIA). The second session was a deep dive into offline CBDC implementation and risk management presented by Lauren Del Giudice (IDEMIA) and Stuart Smith (VISA). [Both sessions were recorded and are available at the ITU]

ITU and Stanford University have agreed to launch a new partnership to support pilot implementations of Digital Fiat Currency (DFC), digital currency authorized and issued by a Central Bank.

Central bank digital currency reference architecture The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for matters related to information and communication technologies, published a report that I co-wrote on a central bank digital currency (CBDC) reference architecture. Its aim is to work towards standardizing how different CBDCs can be evaluated and compared. The report was derived from the ITU's earlier work on digital currency ontological work and is organized around the IMF's "ASAP" model that describes digital asset systems in terms of four functional layers - access, service, asset, and platform. The resulting reference architecture is based on, and informed by, recent CBDC launches, pilots and proofs of concept (i.e., it does not consider prospective future architectures).

"THIS WEEK IN Romania, a US State Department candidate is facing a Russian challenger in an election for the leadership of one of the most important international technology bodies in the world. Who wins could determine whether the internet remains a relatively decentralized and open platform-or begins to centralize into the hands of nation-states and state-run companies that may want great control over what their citizens see and do online. Yet, with just days to go before the vote, the race for secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has garnered painfully little attention."

Digital fiat currency (DFC) is a tokenized, digital representation of a sovereign currency issued by an authorized public or private entity. When issued and distributed by a central bank or other monetary authority, it is a central bank digital currency (CBDC). If it is issued by a private entity, it may be e-money or another form of digital commercial bank money/private digital tokens/stablecoins, even if backed by central bank money.

A working group formed through the Digital Currency Global Initiative has set out to establish a common classification framework for all kinds of digital currency. Members of the architecture-focused working group introduced a new tool designed to overcome terminology problems during January 2022's DC3 conference hosted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The working group is building an ontology - an explanatory framework of terms and characteristics - that can describe exactly what constitutes different kinds of digital currency. The goal is to marry basic taxonomy concepts with deeper ontology concepts, or so-called "notions."

Stanford University's Future of Digital Currency Program joined forces with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United nations agency headed by China, to launch the Digital Currency Global Initiative (DGCI). The purpose is to conduct research on central bank digital currency (CBDC) and other digital currencies, aiming to identify areas for standardization to facilitate interoperability. This research will focus on technical architectures, security, technical implications and challenges in deployment caused by regulatory and policy requirements. It will also construct a set of metrics by which to evaluate the robustness of various digital currency technologies against the requirements set by various stakeholders.