The market will then decide which types of money households and companies prefer over the long term. So far, I have focused on various types of digital token money emerging from the private sector – crypto tokens on the one hand and stable coins on the other. Inevitably, the debate about privately issued digital token money also raises the question of whether central banks should issue their own tokens. This brings me to the last section of my speech, which looks at state-issued digital token money. State-issued digital token money Just like a private institution, a central bank, too, can issue digital token money in its own currency. Essentially, there are two potential areas of application: One, all households and companies could be given access to tokens. Or, two, tokens could be made available only to commercial banks and other financial market participants, just like sight deposits at the central bank today. In Switzerland, the idea of granting all households and companies access to digital central bank money was mooted as an alternative to the Swiss sovereign money initiative. The SNB put out a statement at the time, and remains critical about the idea of broad access to digital  Page 5/7  central bank money. I would like to briefly sum up the main arguments, and point out that the discussion about access to digital central bank money needs to be conducted independently of the technology adopted.
Many forecasters suggest that this trend will not end in the nearest future. There are several explanations of such situation. Firstly, rising oil prices increase demand for alternative sources of energy, biofuels being high on the agenda in many regions. In effect industrial demand for food commodities will further rise. By the way, it is worth to mention what may be the ecological consequences of growing biofuels production. Spiegel online on 26th September 2007 described a research led by the Nobel-price winning chemist Paul Crutzen which had found that biofuels emit even 70 percent more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels. In effect, global warming may accelerate and lead to further increase in frequency of disasters such as floods, droughts, and unexpected weather changes that may have negative effects on crops. Secondly, food prices will be lifted up by an increasing demand for agriculture products in the emerging markets, especially in Asia, as the catching-up process progresses. It is worth keeping in mind that the share of food in the CPI basket is some 10 pp. higher in CEE countries than in the eurozone, so agflation, if it materializes, will lead to inflation divergence. 2. Other commodities prices. Demand for commodities, just as for agricultural products, has substantially risen in recent years. The “problem” lies again in the emerging markets. Fast growing economies create still growing demand for all sorts of commodities, especially metals and fuels (for example: oil consumption in China has doubled within last 10 years).