CBDCs, Tether and Digital Real Estate

A few hot topics of this summer: bitcoin as digital real estate, Tether drama, and central bank announcements.

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This week, “Opinionated” hosts Anna Baydakova, Danny Nelson and Ben Schiller are getting a bit more light-hearted, discussing the hottest topics of this summer, which (sigh!) is officially over.

First, let’s get it clear: We’re not crazy about all those central bank digital currency (CBDC) announcements the central banks did throughout this year and summer. To Ben Schiller, they pretty much remind him of the 2018 hype around enterprise blockchains, which mostly came to nothing.

The reason we are talking about it now? Nigeria announced it would work with a crypto startup, Bitt Inc., on a future launch of the eNaira, one of the rare instances of a central bank named a partner in the industry. Will the central banks of the world do something meaningful with all these CBDC plans in the end?

On the other side of the stablecoin agenda, Tether is resisting the full disclosure of its reserves with teeth and nails. Last week, the company appealed CoinDesk’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request on information about Tether’s reserves composition, which the company provided to the New York Attorney General as part of the investigation into iFinex settled earlier this year.

Turned out, at least part of the crypto community is sympathetic with Tether, arguing the company has the same right to privacy as any individual. We’re discussing this point of view.

Last but not least, we couldn’t miss the latest Udi Wertheimer trolling campaign on Twitter where he stated that “bitcoin is the digital real estate.” Crypto Twitter gleefully picked the punch, and we did, too! But with the narrative ever shifting, what is bitcoin for you? Let us know in replies, and give the podcast some love wherever you’re listening to it!

Happy autumn, subscribe for more great guests and discussions in September!

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HOSTS

Dan Ilett

Dan Ilett writes on tech, money and energy. He advises business on digital strategy and technology messaging for large deals. He is founder of Erbut - an advisory company - and Greenbang - a smart technology research company.

Anna Baydakova

Anna writes about blockchain projects and regulation with a special focus on Eastern Europe and Russia. She is especially excited about stories on privacy, cybercrime, sanctions policies and censorship resistance of decentralized technologies.
She graduated from the Saint Petersburg State University and the Higher School of Economics in Russia and got her Master's degree at Columbia Journalism School in New York City.
She joined CoinDesk after years of writing for various Russian media, including the leading political outlet Novaya Gazeta.
Anna owns BTC and an NFT of sentimental value.

Danny Nelson

Danny is CoinDesk's managing editor for Data & Tokens. He formerly ran investigations for the Tufts Daily. At CoinDesk, his beats include (but are not limited to): federal policy, regulation, securities law, exchanges, the Solana ecosystem, smart money doing dumb things, dumb money doing smart things and tungsten cubes. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL tokens, as well as the LinksDAO NFT.

Benjamin Schiller

Benjamin Schiller is CoinDesk's managing editor for features and opinion. Previously, he was editor-in-chief at BREAKER Magazine and a staff writer at Fast Company. He holds some ETH, BTC and LINK.

Danny Bradbury

Danny Bradbury has been a professional writer since 1989, and has worked freelance since 1994. He covers technology for publications such as the Guardian.

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