CBDCs are a few years off, but govts are researching it now.

An Australian CBDC Pilot report was released today, done by the RBA and DFCRC. Here are some things I noted from a quick look through it:

- They're looking at functions like 'smart payments' e.g. to automate GST collection

- They did explore 'direct control' with the pilot CBDC where the holder performs the tx in a non-custodial fashion. They also had other structures such as custodial and pooled ownership models for CBDC tokens.

- Legal, regulatory, technical and operational issues were explored that they'd need to resolve before any kind of broader roll out. They acknowledge that serious exploration of this is years off.

- They seem focused on tokenising things and trading them around atomically, even mentioning HTLCs (a concept used in Lightning network today). This also included some typical statist causes such as tokenised carbon credits, NSW 'biodiversity' credits. But also more general ideas like supplier invoices.

As a Bitcoiner some reflections I have are that they're very focused on payments.

Whereas the big shift I see with Bitcoin is that it's a new savings asset outside the state's control. Of course, with Bitcoin you can do payments, and the Bitcoin ecoystem will build out advanced functionality on lightning and payments, Discreet Log Contracts, and smarter scripting - but the mere fact that it's all based on a new unit of account is what makes Bitcoin unique.

This is Bitcoin's unique selling point. So while TradFi can replicate faster payments and try to tokenise assets, the real story with Bitcoin is it is an alternative monetary system.

Bitcoin is a monetary system that more and more people will want to be part of, because it offers an unrivaled level of freedom.