MONETARY INSTITUTE · SEMINAR FILE
not a product brief · civic research packet
cbdc.study
Central Bank Digital Currency as Civic Study
issuerledgerprivacycustody
INTAKE MEMO / 01
Begin with the issuer, not the coin.
A CBDC is a public monetary instrument whose design choices become civic architecture: who may hold it, how transfers settle, what traces remain, and which institutions can intervene.
Question before mechanism: what kind of public obligation is being made programmable?
compare custody model
Definitions are policy boundaries.
Token
A bearer-like claim whose transfer may resemble handing over an object.
Account
A relationship mediated by identification, record keeping, and institutional permission.
Wholesale
Settlement among financial institutions and market infrastructures.
Retail
Public-facing money for households, firms, and day-to-day payments.
definitions filed before debate
Follow the authority paths.
central
bank
bank
treasury
banks
public
merchants
A/issuer
B/intermediary
C/public
who can freeze, reverse, audit, or delegate?
Privacy hides in implementation details.
payer identity
merchant category
offline note limitsmall value, delayed sync
metadata
Risk is not only who sees the balance. It is who can join location, device, counterparty, time, and exception logs into a life pattern.
partial disclosure ≠ ordinary anonymity
privacy assumption?
What should remain unsettled?
- Can public money be digital without making public life inspectable?
- Which failures should be reversible, and by whom?
- How much identity is necessary for ordinary payment?
- What happens when programmability becomes a clause in citizenship?
trust + limits + audit ≠ certainty
Seminar remains open
Study the instruments, then study the permissions they require.
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