Former CFTC Officials Ramp Up Push for Digital Dollar With Accenture Partnership

Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo, former LabCFTC Director Daniel Gorfine and investor Charles Giancarlo want to take the dollar digital - and they're not waiting for the Federal Reserve.

The three are forming the Digital Dollar Foundation, working with Accenture to design and push for a potential U.S. central bank digital currency.

The idea isn't new: The former CFTC officials called for using a blockchain platform to support a digital dollar since an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal last October.

"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," he said.

The proposed digital dollar would be a tokenized form of the U.S. currency, which would work with other existing Fed liabilities but act as a digital settlement medium.

The digital dollar would "Meet the demands of the new digital world and a cheaper, faster and more inclusive global financial system," Giancarlo said.

Fed buy-in is key: The digital dollar would have to be backed by the U.S. central bank, unlike most existing cryptocurrencies and dollar-pegged stablecoins.

Notably, the Digital Dollar Foundation's proposals would look to preserve the existing financial system, not replace or otherwise supersede it, according to the press release.

Still, former senior U.S. government officials and academics have considered the possibility that nations like North Korea could use a digital renminbi to bypass sanctions while hostile actors target the aging infrastructure supporting remittances today, like the SWIFT Network.

The new digital dollar envisioned by Giancarlo and Gorfine would fulfill the same niche, but act more simply as just the 21st century dollar, however.