NZZ, November 29, 2016. HTML, PDF. Longer version published on Ökonomenstimme, December 14, 2016. HTML.

Central banks are increasingly interested in employing blockchain technologies, and they should be.

• The blockchain threatens the intermediation business.
• Central banks encounter the blockchain in the form of new krypto currencies, and as the technology underlying new clearing and settlement systems.
• Krypto currencies bear the risk of “dollarization,” but in the major currency areas this risk is still small.
• New clearing and settlement systems benefit from central bank participation. But central banks benefit as well; those rejecting the new technology risk undermining the attractiveness of the home currency.