The Download: digital dollars, and AI guidelines

In 2020, digital currencies were one of the hottest topics in town. China was well on its way to launching its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC, and many other countries launched CBDC research projects. Even Facebook has proposed a global digital currency, called Libra. Few eyebrows were raised when the Boston branch of the US Federal Reserve announced a project to research how a CBDC might be technically designed. A hypothetical US central bank digital currency was hardly controversial, after all.