The digital currency race

Central banks and many companies are rushing to develop their own digital currencies. Why are they doing it? What are the risks? And how might it upend our relationship with money?

Ed Butler speaks to Jay Joe, who runs a company providing some of the tech behind the Bahamas’ new digital currency, the Sand Dollar. Josh Lipsky of the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center, explains what central banks in the Bahamas and elsewhere hope to gain from digitisation.

Samantha Hoffman, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Unit, explains how China might use its new digital version of the Yuan to snoop on people. And David Birch, author or The Currency Cold War, hopes digital currencies may soon allow our fridge and car to manage our finances for us.

Producers: Edwin Lane, Benjie Guy

(Picture: currency symbols. Credit: Getty Images.)