At the recent Future Innovation Summit event held in Dubai, Cointelegraph moderated a panel titled \u201cStablecoins, Central Bank Digital Currencies and Cross-Border Payments\u201d to explore if CBDCs and stablecoins can coexist and how this would be possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The panel included Jorge Carrasco, the managing director of FTI Consulting; Nikita Sachdev, the founder of Luna Media Corp; Jagadeshwaran Kothandapani, the head for Middle East and Africa for Citibank; and Eetu Kuneinen, the co-founder of the gold-backed stablecoin project DGC.<\/p>\n The group explored various topics, answering whether stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) can coexist. According to Kuneinen, CBDCs would be \u201ccentralized by nature\u201d as they would be issued by the government, even though they may be built on a blockchain. The executive argued that certain dangers come along with government control. He explained:\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s say that they don\u2019t like some political rivals. They can, with one click, freeze the other party\u2019s assets. So, what gives us any security that they won\u2019t use this? Or if they are a smaller country, they are pressured by a bigger country to do so?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n On the other hand, the executive argued that creating a framework for a stablecoin that\u2019s not controlled by one private company may be preferable. \u201cWe could have a framework where anyone with assets and anyone with access to certain technology could be able to issue it. So, we could we could have multiple banks issuing the same stablecoin regulation,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Sachdev offered a different opinion on the topic. The executive said that if the government is already intent on freezing a person\u2019s digital assets, they already have various means to do this.\u00a0Furthermore, Sachdev argued that the government\u2019s exploration of utilizing the blockchain for CBDCs might be a step into progress that may eventually lead to going fully decentralized and fully Web3.<\/p>\n While the executive seemed to be defending CBDCs, she clarified that she is not in favor of either CBDCs or stablecoins yet, as recent incidents such as the TerraUSD (UST) collapse highlighted how stablecoins may also pose their own set of risks for the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2023-10\/6db4878d-43d2-4598-9349-3310fbfbc1f3.jpg\")