Digital currency is a broad term for monetary value or money-like claims represented and transferred electronically.
The term can refer to very different instruments, including central bank digital currencies, commercial bank deposits, tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and other privately issued digital monetary claims. These instruments differ in issuer, legal status, convertibility, settlement properties, and risk. StablecoinBeat should therefore use a more specific category whenever the institutional form of the money is known.
Digital currency is an umbrella term. CBDCs, bank deposits, tokenized deposits, and stablecoins are distinct forms of digital money or money-like claims with different issuers and legal structures.
Broad digital-currency labels can conceal important differences in credit risk, settlement, redemption, and public versus private issuance.
A CBDC and a dollar stablecoin can both be digital currencies while representing liabilities of entirely different institutions.