But if it would be a token system, then ALL accounts in that token in ALL countries are fully under control of the USA central bank.
Also currently all dollars, or yen, or yuan, are fully fungible. You can spend any single dollar on anything you want and in reverse any sold good/service acan be bought with any dollar in existence, they are the same. Now tokens are not like that, they are non-fungible and can (and will) be limited in multiple ways. For example you can have 1000 tokens in your account, but out of them only 200 can be spend on the "bad" goods like alcohol or gambling or whatever (on political opposition support, on different religion donation etc.). Or for example you have 1000 but they have an expiration date and will go to 0 in one calendar year, so that you won't save them. The possibilities are endless.
In fact, all of that has been already tested in my Eastern Europe country (Ukraine). We had a pilot program of digital tokens. They required a separate account of course, they couldn't be converted o the regular digital money. Every tranche had an expiration date (for example first one was half a year, next one a year iirc). They could have been spent only on a specific list of goods defined by the government - in that pilot it was only approved entertainment like books, movies and also donations were allowed.
I'm personally horrified by this very real and very close future prospect. Like that's not even some abstract Matrix or Cyberpunk level horror. It is here, it is almost deployed. EU is talking all the time about it. It is mind boggling to me how regular people aren't protesting this shit. Don't you all see the implications?
Also, there's nothing stopping foreign banks from issuing their own stablecoins. Owning a US bank-issued stablecoin is like having an account with that bank. If you have a problem with that, then you can swap your balance for a EUR-backed stablecoin issued by a European bank. Or better yet, you could sell it for real USD or EUR.
All that text above is just underscore this - a future Fed owned token would be on a completely different level of control. Cross border control too.
Regarding alternative token systems - a) outside of maybe 2-5 tokens all others won't be adopted and die out (unless enforced in a totalitarian way), b) the survivors will share the same traits, copied from one to another, after all they will be controlled by the same orgs - central banks.
And finally - no, you won't be able to sell tokens to money. Only if the owner of all tokens (a central bank) will graciously allow it. For example in the pilot in my country it did not. Thinking logically - if token system is created to restrict freedoms and bring more control to the govt, why would that govt allow "exiting" this new system? Everyone who cares and all potential targets will sell this token and go back to using money. So of course any bridges will be either heavily restricted (for the inner circle, corrupt officials, oligarchs etc.) or won't be allowed at all from the start.
Also, you can always write wrapper coins for other stable coins that don't have any spending restrictions. And yeah, issuers can play whack-a-mole and ban those contracts. But at that point we're talking about a coin that no one would even recognize as money any more. Why would anyone use it? If they're already on the blockchain it would be a pretty seamless switch to just use the native token.
And at the end of the day, if you can exchange your dystopian stablecoins for USD (as the legislation requires) then you can functionally spend your money with the same restrictions that are on your bank account anyhow.
You’re handwaving this away. Just because something is theoretically possible, it doesn’t mean that it’s as likely to happen as something else that is order of magnitudes less complex (imposing the level of fine-grained control discussed in this thread on the existing system, versus building it in from the beginning in a new one). Friction and inertia matters in the context of preventing government overreach
> Why would anyone use it?
Because the government mandates it. Because the only employers that will hire you pay out wages in it. You can imagine many scenarios where individuals don’t have much of a choice. Which could be a reason for someone to want this idea to not catch on, lest the current system gets replaced by something worse. Cheerleaders and enthusiasts may take the opposite view
> if you can exchange your dystopian stablecoins for USD
Yes, if. And for how long?
I’m not saying a motivated totalitarian regime controlling all levers of powers could necessarily be prevented from implementing their dystopia anyway, but we also don’t have to expedite technology that would make it significantly easier for them
Remember, issuers want people to use stablecoins because they get to invest the funds in treasuries and hold onto the interest. If everything is blacklisted then no one will want to use them and the issuer won't make any money.