Christopher Giancarlo, AKA the former chairman of the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission, AKA "Crypto-dad", today launched a non-profit dedicated to promoting and studying a digital US dollar that could be sent "as easily as text."
"We are launching the Digital Dollar Project to catalyze a digital, tokenized US currency that would coexist with other Federal Reserve liabilities and serve as a settlement medium to meet the demands of the new digital world and a cheaper, faster and more inclusive global financial system," said Giancarlo in a statement.
Giancarlo founded the nonprofit along with Daniel Gorfine, a former CTFC chief innovation officer, who in October penned a Wall Street Journal opinion piece with Giancarlo suggesting the US should "send the dollar to cyberspace." Others in the non-profit include Giancarlo's brother, Charles Giancarlo, and hedge fund Silver Lake Partners.
"A digital dollar would help future-proof the greenback and allow individuals and global enterprises to make payments in dollars irrespective of space and time," said Giancarlo in a statement.
It would also help the US keep up with its main rival superpower, China, which is on track to launch a digital Yuan. A digital dollar would also help protect the dollar against corporate threats, such as Libra, the sort-of-stablecoin produced by the Facebook-led Libra Association, and the ever-popular US dollar stablecoin, Tether.