El dinero del futuro: monedas digitales y el poder del Estado

El yuan digital le devuelve ese control al banco central.

The digital yuan gives that control back to the central bank.

But there's a second incentive, and this is where it gets geopolitical.

China wants to challenge dollar dominance in global trade.

If countries in Southeast Asia, in Africa, in Latin America start settling transactions in digital yuan, they bypass the SWIFT system entirely, and that is a direct challenge to American financial power.

Es que esto es lo que más me preocupa, la verdad, desde un punto de vista europeo.

This is what worries me most, honestly, from a European perspective.

Europa lleva décadas siendo financieramente dependiente de una infraestructura que no controla.

Europe has spent decades financially dependent on infrastructure it doesn't control.

Las sanciones a Rusia demostraron el poder descomunal que tiene Estados Unidos cuando puede excluir a un país del sistema SWIFT.

The sanctions on Russia demonstrated the enormous power the US has when it can exclude a country from SWIFT.

Y Europa participó en esas sanciones, pero la pregunta es: ¿qué pasaría si algún día Estados Unidos usara ese poder contra intereses europeos?

Europe participated in those sanctions, but the question is: what if the US ever used that power against European interests?

Which brings us to the European Central Bank, and the digital euro project.

The ECB has been in an investigation phase for years now.

They're moving carefully, very carefully, maybe too carefully depending on who you ask.

No, no, espera, yo diría que la cautela europea no es solo burocracia, aunque algo de eso también hay.

No, wait, I'd say European caution isn't just bureaucracy, though there's some of that too.

Es que en Europa el debate sobre privacidad financiera es muchísimo más intenso que en China o incluso que en Estados Unidos.

In Europe, the debate about financial privacy is far more intense than in China or even the US.

El Reglamento General de Protección de Datos no es un accidente histórico;

The GDPR isn't a historical accident;

refleja una desconfianza real hacia el poder de los datos concentrado en pocas manos.

it reflects real distrust toward data power concentrated in few hands.

And this is really the central tension in the whole CBDC debate, isn't it.

Because cash is anonymous.

If I hand you a twenty-euro note, nobody knows that transaction happened.

A digital currency, by its very nature, leaves a record.

Every transaction, in principle, is visible to whoever runs the system.

A ver, y cuando dices esto, la gente que defiende las CBDC responde que los sistemas actuales también dejan rastros.

And when you say this, CBDC defenders respond that current systems also leave traces.

Cuando pagas con tarjeta, Visa o Mastercard saben exactamente lo que compraste, cuándo y dónde.

When you pay by card, Visa or Mastercard know exactly what you bought, when, and where.

La diferencia es que esos datos están en manos de empresas privadas americanas, no del Estado.

The difference is that data sits with American private companies, not the state.

La pregunta de fondo es: ¿quién prefieres que te espíe?

The underlying question is: who do you prefer to surveil you?

I find that argument genuinely uncomfortable, because both options being bad doesn't make either of them good.

And the state has powers that a credit card company doesn't.

The state can freeze your assets, it can prosecute you, it can use financial data as evidence in court.

Mira, yo no te voy a contradecir en eso.

I'm not going to contradict you on that.

La historia española del siglo XX me hace muy poco proclive a confiar ciegamente en el Estado con ese nivel de información.

Spain's twentieth-century history makes me very reluctant to trust the state blindly with that level of information.

Mi padre contaba que durante el franquismo la gente guardaba dinero en efectivo precisamente porque era la única forma de tener algo que el Estado no podía rastrear ni confiscar fácilmente.

My father used to say that during the Franco era people kept cash precisely because it was the only thing the state couldn't easily track or confiscate.

No, you're absolutely right about that, and it's a reminder that this isn't an abstract debate.

The specific design choices made in a CBDC, whether it's traceable, whether there are holding limits, whether it can be programmed to expire, those choices have real consequences for real people in real political situations.

La verdad es que el concepto que más me inquieta de todo este debate es el del dinero programable.

Honestly, the concept that worries me most in this whole debate is programmable money.

La idea de que el dinero pueda llevar instrucciones incorporadas sobre cómo, cuándo y dónde puede gastarse.

The idea that money could carry built-in instructions about how, when, and where it can be spent.

Técnicamente es posible, y en manos de un gobierno autoritario sería una herramienta de control social sin precedentes históricos.

Technically it's possible, and in the hands of an authoritarian government it would be an unprecedented tool of social control.

Programmable money.

So imagine a government issues you a welfare payment in digital currency that can only be spent on food and medicine, not alcohol, not cigarettes, not gambling.

Sounds almost reasonable on the surface, right?

Except you've just handed the state the ability to define what is and isn't an acceptable purchase.

Es que eso no es hipotético, Fletcher.

That's not hypothetical, Fletcher.

China ya ha experimentado con cupones digitales de consumo que caducaban si no se gastaban en determinado plazo para estimular la economía local.

China has already experimented with digital consumption vouchers that expired if not spent within a certain period, to stimulate the local economy.

Funcionó como política económica, pero también es un ensayo perfecto de lo que significaría tener dinero con fecha de caducidad o con restricciones de uso incorporadas.

It worked as economic policy, but it's also a perfect trial run for what it would mean to have money with an expiry date or built-in spending restrictions.

Look, I want to bring in the banking angle here, because this is something that doesn't get enough attention.

If people can hold digital euros directly with the ECB, why do they need a commercial bank?

You could theoretically cut the entire retail banking sector out of the picture.

Bueno, esto es lo que los economistas llaman desintermediación, y es una de las razones principales por las que los bancos comerciales están tan nerviosos con todo este asunto.

This is what economists call disintermediation, and it's one of the main reasons commercial banks are so nervous about all this.

Si los ciudadanos pueden tener cuentas directamente en el banco central, los bancos privados pierden depósitos, pierden la base sobre la que construyen sus préstamos, y en una crisis financiera ese efecto puede acelerarse de manera brutal.

If citizens can hold accounts directly at the central bank, private banks lose deposits, they lose the base on which they build their loans, and in a financial crisis that effect could accelerate brutally.

There's actually a nightmare scenario that economists have a name for: the digital bank run.

The moment there's a financial crisis and people panic, they could move their savings from commercial banks to the central bank's digital currency in a matter of hours.

Not days, hours.

Because it's just an app.

Y por eso casi todos los diseños de monedas digitales de banco central que se están discutiendo incluyen límites en la cantidad que se puede tener.

And that's why almost every CBDC design being discussed includes holding limits.

El BCE ha hablado de un límite de tres mil euros por ciudadano.

The ECB has talked about a three-thousand-euro limit per citizen.

Pero eso también es una decisión política enorme: estás diseñando deliberadamente un instrumento financiero que no puede usarse plenamente como reserva de valor.

But that's also an enormous political decision: you're deliberately designing a financial instrument that can't fully be used as a store of value.

Here's what gets me about the Latin American dimension of this story.

You've got El Salvador, which made Bitcoin legal tender in 2021, which was either visionary or chaotic depending on your view.

And you've got countries like Venezuela that have experimented with state-backed digital currencies as a way around sanctions.

These are countries where the relationship with money is already very different.

A ver, El Salvador es un caso realmente interesante y un poco trágico a la vez.

El Salvador is a really interesting and somewhat tragic case.

La idea original de Bukele tenía cierta lógica: en un país donde el cuarenta por ciento de la economía depende de remesas de emigrantes en Estados Unidos, los costes de transacción de esas transferencias son absurdamente altos.

Bukele's original idea had a certain logic: in a country where forty percent of the economy depends on remittances from emigrants in the US, the transaction costs on those transfers are absurdly high.

Bitcoin podría haberlos eliminado.

Bitcoin could have eliminated them.

El problema es que Bitcoin no es una moneda estable, y la gente pobre no puede permitirse esa volatilidad.

The problem is that Bitcoin isn't a stable currency, and poor people can't afford that volatility.

And that's actually the most powerful argument for CBDCs in developing economies, the financial inclusion argument.

There are over a billion people in the world who are unbanked, they have no access to the formal financial system.

If you can access a central bank digital currency with just a mobile phone, you leapfrog the entire banking infrastructure problem.

La verdad es que este argumento me convence más que casi ningún otro.

This argument convinces me more than almost any other.

Hay zonas rurales en México, en Nigeria, en la India, donde la gente tiene teléfono móvil pero nunca ha tenido una cuenta bancaria.

There are rural areas in Mexico, Nigeria, India, where people have mobile phones but have never had a bank account.

Kenya demostró con M-Pesa que los pagos móviles pueden transformar una economía entera.

Kenya demonstrated with M-Pesa that mobile payments can transform an entire economy.

Una moneda digital bien diseñada podría llevar eso mucho más lejos.

A well-designed digital currency could take that much further.

I want to talk about cash, because cash isn't just an economic instrument.

It's a cultural one.

I've been to countries where cash is still king, and countries where it's almost dead.

And the attitude toward cash tells you something real about how people relate to the state.

Mira, en España el efectivo sigue siendo muy importante, especialmente entre las generaciones mayores y en la economía informal, que también existe, seamos sinceros.

In Spain cash is still very important, especially among older generations and in the informal economy, which also exists, let's be honest.

Hay una desconfianza visceral hacia los sistemas que dejan registros, que tiene raíces históricas profundas.

There's a visceral distrust of systems that leave records, with deep historical roots.

Pero incluso entre los jóvenes hay una cierta nostalgia por el efectivo que no esperabas hace diez años.

But even among young people there's a certain nostalgia for cash that you wouldn't have expected ten years ago.

Sweden is the extreme case in the other direction.

They've gone almost completely cashless, faster than almost any other country.

And now, interestingly, there's a backlash.

The Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, started their e-krona project precisely because they realized that if cash disappears entirely and the private payment system goes down, the whole country has no backup.

Es que esto es algo que la gente no tiene en cuenta: la infraestructura de pagos privada es frágil.

This is something people don't consider: private payment infrastructure is fragile.

Visa tiene caídas, los sistemas de tarjetas fallan, los ciberataques son cada vez más sofisticados.

Visa goes down, card systems fail, cyberattacks grow more sophisticated.

El efectivo es primitivo pero es resiliente.

Cash is primitive but resilient.

Funciona sin electricidad, sin internet, sin que ningún servidor esté disponible.

It works without electricity, without internet, without any server being available.

Una moneda digital necesita todo eso para funcionar.

A digital currency needs all of that to function.

There's also a democratic legitimacy question that I think is genuinely underexplored.

The ECB is not directly accountable to voters.

It's deliberately insulated from political pressure.

But if the digital euro becomes the primary way Europeans transact, the ECB holds an extraordinary amount of power over daily life, and there's no elected body controlling that.

Bueno, esto me parece uno de los argumentos más serios del debate, y curiosamente es uno en el que coinciden la izquierda y la derecha más soberanistas.

This strikes me as one of the most serious arguments in the debate, and curiously it's one where the left and the sovereigntist right agree.

Los primeros desconfían del poder sin control democrático.

The former distrust power without democratic accountability.

Los segundos desconfían de las instituciones supranacionales por principio.

The latter distrust supranational institutions on principle.

Que dos tradiciones políticas tan distintas lleguen a la misma conclusión debería hacernos pensar.

That two such different political traditions reach the same conclusion should give us pause.

I mean, there's a version of this that gets really interesting from a monetary policy perspective.

One of the frustrations central banks have had since 2008 is that they've pushed interest rates to zero, even negative, and it still doesn't stimulate enough spending.

With a digital currency, you could theoretically program money to lose value if it isn't spent, which forces consumption.

A ver, eso es el sueño de ciertos economistas y la pesadilla de cualquier persona con sentido común.

That's the dream of certain economists and the nightmare of anyone with common sense.

El ahorro no es un vicio económico, es una forma de seguridad personal, de planificación familiar, de prudencia intergeneracional.

Saving isn't an economic vice, it's personal security, family planning, intergenerational prudence.

Un sistema que castiga el ahorro está redefiniendo la relación entre el individuo y su dinero de una manera que va mucho más allá de la política monetaria.

A system that punishes saving redefines the relationship between the individual and their money in ways that go far beyond monetary policy.

And then there's the dollar question, which hangs over all of this.

The United States has been, honestly, pretty slow on the CBDC front.

There's enormous political resistance, particularly from Republicans who see it as a surveillance tool.

But if China's digital yuan gains traction in international trade, the dollar's reserve currency status, which is the foundation of American economic power, comes under real pressure.

Es que el privilegio del dólar como moneda de reserva mundial le permite a Estados Unidos financiar su deuda a condiciones que ningún otro país podría obtener.

The dollar's status as the world's reserve currency allows the US to finance its debt on terms no other country could obtain.

Es un poder enorme y relativamente invisible para la mayoría de los americanos.

It's an enormous and relatively invisible power for most Americans.

Si ese privilegio se erosiona, las consecuencias para el nivel de vida americano podrían ser muy concretas y muy rápidas.

If that privilege erodes, the consequences for American living standards could be very concrete and very fast.

So, you could argue that the CBDC race is actually the next chapter of a much older story about which country's money the world trusts most.

And that story has always been settled by a combination of economic size, military power, and institutional credibility.

La verdad es que hay algo casi poético en eso.

There's something almost poetic about that.

Llevamos siglos discutiendo sobre qué hace que el dinero tenga valor, y la respuesta siempre ha sido la misma: la confianza.

We've spent centuries debating what gives money value, and the answer has always been the same: trust.

La confianza en el emisor, en las instituciones, en el sistema.

Trust in the issuer, in the institutions, in the system.

El dinero digital no cambia esa ecuación fundamental.

Digital money doesn't change that fundamental equation.

Solo la traslada a un nuevo terreno.

It just moves it to new terrain.

So what does all this actually mean for a normal person.

Not for a central banker or a geopolitical strategist, but for someone who just wants to pay for their coffee and know that their savings are safe.

Mira, para esa persona, en el corto plazo, probablemente no cambie mucho.

For that person, in the short term, probably not much changes.

El euro digital, si alguna vez llega a existir plenamente, coexistirá con el efectivo y con los sistemas de pago actuales durante años.

The digital euro, if it ever fully exists, will coexist with cash and current payment systems for years.

Pero en el medio plazo, las preguntas sobre privacidad, sobre quién tiene acceso a tus datos financieros, sobre si el dinero que tienes puede ser bloqueado o restringido, esas preguntas le afectan a todo el mundo.

But in the medium term, questions about privacy, about who has access to your financial data, about whether your money can be blocked or restricted, those questions affect everyone.

And I think the honest answer is that we are at the very beginning of a conversation that society needs to have openly and loudly.

Because these decisions are being made by technocrats in central banks right now, and most people have no idea they're even happening.

Es exactamente eso, Fletcher, y es también por lo que me parece tan importante hablar de esto ahora, antes de que las decisiones estén tomadas.

That's exactly it, Fletcher, and it's also why I think it's so important to talk about this now, before the decisions are made.

La historia del dinero es en parte la historia de quién toma esas decisiones y con qué legitimidad.

The history of money is partly the history of who makes those decisions and with what legitimacy.

Si las monedas digitales van a redefinir nuestra relación con el dinero, con el Estado y con la privacidad, esa conversación no puede quedarse en los despachos de los bancos centrales.

If digital currencies are going to redefine our relationship with money, with the state, and with privacy, that conversation cannot stay inside central bank offices.

Look, I came into this episode genuinely uncertain about where I stand on CBDCs.

And I think I'm leaving it...

still genuinely uncertain.

Which might be the most honest place to be.

The potential benefits are real.

The risks are also real.

And the difference between a liberating tool and an instrument of control might come down to decisions that haven't been made yet.

Bueno, yo sí tengo una posición, aunque reconozco que es matizada.

I do have a position, though I acknowledge it's nuanced.

Creo que las monedas digitales de banco central son inevitables, y que intentar detenerlas sería tan inútil como intentar detener internet en los años noventa.

I think central bank digital currencies are inevitable, and that trying to stop them would be as futile as trying to stop the internet in the nineties.

La pregunta no es si van a existir, sino con qué valores se diseñan.

The question isn't whether they'll exist, but what values they're designed with.

Y esa es una batalla que vale la pena dar, porque las consecuencias de perderla serían muy duraderas.

And that's a battle worth fighting, because the consequences of losing it would be very lasting.