Central Bank Digital Currency as New Public Money

Today, nearly every central bank around the world is considering whether to create a new form of digital public money, referred to as central bank digital currency, “CBDC.” Although CBDC is often discussed as a way to make payments more efficient, enhance financial inclusion, or reduce the risk of financial instability posed by stablecoins, the legal rights attached to CBDC remain poorly understood. This Article theorizes American public money as a bundle of distinct economic rights—namely, rights to popular monetary sovereignty; to property in value; and to qualified privacy. It then measures CBDC against the legal and conventional status quo to discern where CBDC adds to the monetary bundle-of-rights or takes a stick away. The Article argues that CBDC transfers significant monetary power to the State by weakening the individual right of issuance, conditioning the individual right to monetary property, and rendering monetary privacy rights scarce. It also, in so doing, empowers the central bank while weakening its independence