印度中央银行数字货币的拟议架构（英）

ISSUE NO. 340 DECEMBER 2021© 2021 Observer Research Foundation. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, archived, retained or transmitted through print, speech or electronic media without prior written approval from ORF.Occasional PaperA Proposed Architecture for a Central Bank Digital Currency for IndiaAbstractMost central banks across the globe are today seized with the idea of cryptocurrency, with countries like Sweden and China already embarking on their pilot projects. This paper argues that most of the proposed architectures for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) are not designed to mimic the paper currency in its digital form. It proposes an architecture that largely retains all the properties of a paper currency, with only one limitation—i.e., the lack of complete anonymity when cash is transferred peer-to-peer. The novelty of the protocol suggested in this paper is that it retains the denominational aspect of paper currencies, and therefore the exchange of money will be in the form of digital cash of certain denominations. Since there is no significant difference between digital fiat money and the paper fiat money, such an architecture will not have any new macroeconomic implications that the paper currency does not already have. Attribution: Ashok K Nag, “A Proposed Architecture for a Central Bank Digital Currency for India,” ORF Occasional Paper No. 340, December 2021, Observer Research Foundation. Ashok K Nag3IntroductionThe question of what constitutes ‘money’ has repeatedly been raised across history. In more contemporary times, it was economist Stephanie Bell (2001) who had listed the multiple functions that money must discharge: “a numeraire, a medium of exchange, a store of value, a means of payment, a unit of account, a measure of wealth, a simple debt, a delayed form of reciprocal altruism, a reference point in accumulation, an institution, or some combine of these?.”1 Many of these functions (for instance, as means of payment) are necessarily socially mediated. There is no prima facie reason to believe that the nature of exchange must be commercial in the sense that receiver of the money is to give in exchange another good or services – that is “give value for value”. The form of money has evolved over time—from stone money of the Yap in the Western Caroline Islands of Micronesia2 to paper money of the present. This paper is about the digitalisation of fiat money, a subject that has gained greater attention in recent years. Already, countries like Sweden and China have begun embarking on their pilot digitalisation projects; other countries are ideating their own frameworks. The paper proposes an architecture for India that largely retains all the properties of a paper currency, with only one limitation—i.e., the lack of complete anonymity when cash is transferred peer-to-peer.The next section describes two main views about the origin of money and how cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin can