Central bank interest in issuing a fiat digital currency has opened the door to profound social-economic and policy issues. This paper presents a discussion of Agur et al. (2021), in which the authors study the optimal design of a central bank digital currency (CDBC). The main result of the work is that an interest-bearing CBDC (in particular, negative remuneration) alleviates the tradeoff between bank intermediation and the social value of maintaining cash. To be fully convincing from a policymaker's point of view, the results should be tested along several dimensions, including considering a wider range of trade offs with regards to the introduction of a CBDC.
