(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, welcome to, "Both Sides of the Story."

I'm your host, Alan Gionet, from CBS4.

Thanks for joining us.

Tonight is the third place match for our winners bracket.

Students from George Washington in Denver and Mountain Vista in Highlands Ranch are here to battle it out.

All right, so let's meet our participants right now.

First up, Sahithi Mathukumilli, a junior from Mountain Vista High School.

Let's see your story.

- As a kid, I was super, super shy, afraid to talk to people.

So I found speech and debate, and I was like, "You know what, let's try it."

And here I am now super comfortable speaking in front of people.

I am Sahithi Mathukumilli' and I go to Mountain Vista High School, and I'm in 11th grade.

Since I do wanna go into healthcare, I hope that I can be that person where my patient feels super comfortable talking to me and that I can communicate clearly, concisely in a way that's perceivable to my patient.

- Combining Sahithi's ability to be so calm and poised and passionate but with that organizational skill and that collaborative nature.

I think that's one of the things she brings to a debate environment.

So it takes away the aggression and leaves that real sense of a knowledgeable experienced student.

I believe that taking apart in speech and debate is one of the most impactful things that you can ever do, and it'll improve your confidence, your speaking skills, and it's something that you can use to make change wherever you see that change needs to be made.

- You have met Sahithi.

Next, meet Ethan Carter, a senior from George Washington High School let's meet Ethan.

- My name is Ethan Carter.

I am a senior and I go to George Washington High School.

My favorite part about debate is just kind of the argument Where I like, I want to argue.

I prefer to be unapologetically myself with what I say.

Win or lose it doesn't really matter as long as like I'm educating someone else on something they may have not thought of.

I really just like the little nuances of debate and just being able to say, here's what I believe in and here's how it's connected to whatever we're debating about.

- Ethan is extremely passionate about debates.

He has really in the last four years come to be able to use his voice to advocate for issues that he really cares about.

And he's also become a leader on our team and I feel like he should really get a chance to be highlighted in the community.

- What inspires me, my mom actually inspires me just how hard she has (indistinct), her growth and her determination just really inspires me and makes me want to be the best version of myself.

- Great story two tremendous debaters.

Also joining us is our illustrious panel of experts who will offer their analysis of our debate today.

They are Dominic Dezzutti host of Colorado "Inside Out" the weekly round table program here on PBS12.

He's joined by Ed Sealover, senior reporter with the Denver Business Journal and Sam Battan, the executive director of the Colorado Youth Congress.

Here we go time to set the ground rules right now.

Each side will present their case, ask each other questions and have a chance to offer rebuttals.

Now, both students have prepared a pro and a con case for tonight's debate.

They won't know which side they'll defend until we have a coin flip right here in our studio.

When it is finished, we'll go back to our illustrious panel for questions and we'll find out who they felt offered the best arguments.

So let's get started right now.

Here's the issue up for debate today, it is this should the United States federal government implement a central bank digital currency.

Let's have our coin flip now and we'll get things underway.

I will do the toss, Sahithi, you are on my right therefore you will call heads or tails?

- Heads.

- Heads it is, what would you like pro or con?

- Pro.

- With the affirmative, that means you get things going as the proponent the floor is now yours.

Three minutes, go ahead.

- Today, I will present to you my case on why we should vote an affirmation for the resolution.

The United States federal government should implement essential bank digital currency.

To justify this I will discuss the reasons for advancing U S technology to remain on the global stage making transactions for the public easier and allowing the United States to fully develop digital currency and make it as safe as possible.

My first key point is that the United States needs to continue advancing technology to remain powerful on the global stage.

To keep our position as a country of power among other great nations, we need to keep improving our systems otherwise we will fall behind and fail to have the influence that we currently have on the global economy.

According to the Center of Economic and Policy Research, the U S has the world's single largest economy accounting for almost a quarter of global GDP, one fifth of global FDI, and more than a third of stock market capitalization.

With such a high level of global influence we must keep improving to keep other dependent countries reliant on U S success afloat.

Introducing a digital currency will help move tech to the next big level and would give the United States even more leverage in the world.

In addition, implementing this digital currency in the United States would help make transactions easier, faster and more convenient.

The transactions in digital currency would be instantaneous and low cost, and they would also be lower risks since there would be limited fraud or scam with cryptocurrency.

On top of this, it would be difficult for personal information to be leaked because everything is encrypted and no one can check your payment information.

This back to loan makes digital currency, much safer than traditional credit card or cash, which can very easily lead to fraudulent charges.

Chairman Jerome Powell explains that our focus is on ensuring safe and efficient payment systems that provide broad benefits to American households and businesses while also embracing innovation.

And his words wholly encompass the goals of digital currency.

We're trying to stay up to date with the ever-changing technology while spacing pressure from other countries and the federal government should take charge and make a central digital currency so that the United States can continue to thrive and pave the way for other countries.

My final point is this, hesitation is failure.

David Treat leader of the Blockchain Practice for Accenture, which is the leading research initiative into central bank digital currencies tells us that it's going to take some time to do it right.

We're talking about a four or five-year journey to real availability and usage in a lot of learning that has to happen between now and then to make sure that it's implemented and it fits with each country social values and laws.

Digital coins represent another avenue that central banks are pursuing to make payments more efficient and we need to take action now so that we can review its trends and best prepare ourselves for any potential disasters.

We are headed inevitably toward a world that is run by digital currencies, and we need to make sure that we're prepared for its demands.

Thus, I urge you to vote an affirmation of the resolutions for the reasons of maintaining U S global influence, making transactions more convenient, and to prepare ourselves for what the future of cryptocurrency holds.

- Sahithi thank you very much, she has the affirmative.

Now Ethan, with a negative two minutes for questions and cross-examination, go right ahead.

- Great, so let's talk about your second argument and you bring up allowing more people to ensure more people making the transactions easier.

Is this allowing those that are unbanked to have banking accounts?

- Yes, since everything is digital, it's open to the public and open to everybody and it makes things a lot easier and faster and overall safer for everybody.

- Will this resolve the issues of current inequities of people not having bank accounts.

Is this gonna account for like their reasons, their reasoning of not being within the current system?

- Yes, again, as I mentioned before, since all digital currencies are public and available on the global stage and are made more convenient and faster, we do have the ability to make banking with cryptocurrencies accessible for everybody.

- Great, and you talked about in your first argument about how that data won't be leaked and there's past tense of privacy protection.

How can we trust that the government will not abuse the power of these, of the information of people's transactions?

- I mean, we can only do so much to prevent that, but I think if we put this forward and make sure that we implement regulations for the interference of United States government, and we kind of lay down these ground rules.

We can make sure that we do put our best foot forward and make sure that banking through cryptocurrencies is available for everybody in a safe way and the federal government will get involved.

- Thank you, and also, do you have any current examples of like in the status quo of countries with a central bank digital currency?

- Again, this is something that we're working towards and it's something that a lot of countries are working towards.

And so I think it will ultimately take over as we've seen with cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, which is just one of the most popular.

And so since that is gaining so much attention, we need to make sure that our countries and others around the world are able to keep up with that demand and advancing with the times and not just staying stagnant.

- We'll have to wrap up the questions right now, Ethan, with the negative the floor is now yours for three minutes, go ahead.

- Great, and to give a resolve the United States federal government should implement a central bank digital currency for the following three reasons.

First, a central bank digital currency would lead to violations of privacy.

This is in the form of data collection from the blockchain coding, and also by government surveillance.

This threat is seen within an article published by Charles Lane in the Washington post in 2021.

We do not want a system, we do not want to create a system that would give government access in real time to detailed information about every single transaction.

It's individual citizens might conduct for the Chinese government, that's not an issue.

Beijing seems to see CBDC as a major step towards its goal of complete digital enabled social surveillance and control.

China is the current leader in CBDC.

It is problematic because it is being used as a tool of surveillance to actively oppress their citizens.

(indistinct) is associated with CBDC can be seen in an article from Investopedia by Shobhit Seth in 2021.

The provider would become very pretty to every transaction conducted, this can lead to privacy issue similar in that ones that Playtech behemoths and internet service providers, examples, central banks could disallow transactions between citizens.

When the rights of privacy is lost, it can lead to the over-policing of certain communities.

All that it takes is for one potential bad actor that can abuse this, this is an invasion of privacy.

Second, there is a lack of regulation with the CDBC.

This lack of regulation is maintaining consistency with the failure of the initiative.

This is evident from the article, from the Columbia law review by George (indistinct).

It is high time for central banks leaders to abstain from triumph speeches on CBDC until they have found a way to avoid systemic risk and regulatory problems of CBDC.

We are far from discovering ineffective approach.

These concerns are reflected in the recent guidelines for access of master accounts by the federal reserve.

One could imagine during a banking crisis, a rush to bank deposits to CBDCs exacerbating the crisis should central banks resist these efforts at conversions.

A (indistinct) market could emerge a premium on CBDC via threat of worsening an economic crisis is there, and there are no regulations or frameworks on how to handle a crisis.

Which is the driving factor for why VUS ought not to implement a CBDC.

Third and finally, as previously mentioned, privacy and regulation threats prove why the United States should not implement CBDC besides history of both monopolization and lack of necessity proves that the lack of necessity is not there according to a article from Reuters by Edward Chancellor in 2021.

Long ago central bank security monopoly overview insurance of paper money, not physical cash in the form of banknotes and coins is in the terminal decline, but the monetary authorities don't allow, don't intend to allows cryptocurrencies to fill in view void without a fight, instead of responding with their own version of a so-called stable coin with all the risks present if you U S had a CBDC, it will lead to a monopoly of federal reserve.

The justification for this is more power.

This is problematic because of the previously mentioned potential abuse from a bad actor.

Also there's no solid justification for implementation.

According to an article by VoxEU by Peter Bofinger in 2021, there is no obvious justification for digital (indistinct) from the point of view of allocated efficiency, the narrow solutions that are discussed by far do not seem attractive enough to compete successfully with private bank deposits and private retail payment systems like PayPal.

The current status quo is better than the potential risks.

Thus, I urge a negative bound I announced in open for across.

- Ethan Carter, thank you very much.

The question of the day should the federal government implement a central bank digital currency?

You have Ethan with a negative.

We have Sahithi with the affirmative, two minutes for questions now from you Sahithi to Ethan, go ahead.

- All right, thank you for your speech.

How can we expect to stay on the global stage if we don't adapt to the times and what other countries are moving to do?

- If we're adapting to the times, we're adapting to oppression and authoritarianism.

We need to be striving force, we need to be striving for maintaining security amongst our own citizens.

The ability for a negative actor and the governments who abuse the central bank digital currency is more reasons why, but also, if you look back to my case, I mentioned about how there is lack of regulation.

We should not gamble and say, just because everyone else is doing it, we should do it.

For example, if everyone else is jumping off of a bridge, we should not jump with them.

What we should be doing is we should be investigating more and we should, from the investigation I've provided in today's round it's evident that the risks far outweigh any small potential benefits of a central bank digital currency.

- All right, and then you mentioned, I think it was in your third point that cryptocurrency could potentially lead to an economic crisis that we aren't prepared for.

So could you please explain how regular money could potentially be better than cryptocurrency economic crisis?

- Yeah, of course.

So like when talking about like the potential digital currencies, it's mentioning like something like last year, like we are in a previous years with the COVID pandemic and the strive for like requiring loans.

When we, when people need money and they need access to maintain themselves and they go straight to the federal reserve, which during an economic crisis is bad because giving more money that's gonna exacerbate the problem because we're putting ourselves more into debt and we're not allowing ourselves to repay for that.

It's gonna lead to the problem being worse.

We're not receiving any tangible, excuse me, we're not receiving any tangible benefits from this or anything that would be worth, that would be better than in the current status quo of commercial banks.

- All right, and then do you see in the future seeing that, do you envision CBDCs with the rise of things like cryptocurrencies in investments?

Do you think that those could eventually take over our lives in those investments?

- Yes, but as approval of my case, they're gonna take over any negative way.

We're gonna take over any form of privacy abuse and lack of regulation and that's time, thank you.

- All right, we'll have to cut the questions off right there now, Sahithi two minutes for rebuttal, go.

- All right, I would like to start with touching on my opponents first point of the fact that cryptocurrencies don't provide enough security.

Now I mentioned in my case, it was my third point saying that we need to start implementing and laying the foundation of cryptocurrencies right now, so that we can plan for any potential disasters.

As we know, this can be a journey, this is something that is going to take a while, since it's a journey that we're embarking on, it's going to take time.

So if we are able to start implementing those cryptocurrencies now, then we can plan for things like, oh, will it be an invasion of privacy which I think it won't because we'll have the tools to plan for that and counteracted.

And we can speak with people who are knowledgeable about this topic and make sure that we are executing the cryptocurrencies in the way that will serve the people best.

Again, we need to move forward with our money and our transactions, and we can't keep doing what we have been doing for the past couple of years.

The U S is both, is a country that's built off of economic progress and technical advancements.

And in order to keep that kind of movement up, we need to make sure that we're pursuing new opportunities and not fearing the potential drawbacks of it.

And also I think that CBDCs are incredibly powerful in this day and age, especially with the stock market we've seen Bitcoin and this cryptocurrencies are also protection from inflation, as there is a certain amount and we know what to expect and when we can expect the downfall of cryptocurrencies and therefore, if we look to last year, we won't see the amount of economic ups and downs and we won't have as volatile of our market through a pandemic since we know what to expect and that we can monitor this with the implementation of cryptocurrencies.

Thank you.

- All right, Sahithi thank you very much.

Now, should the United States have its own digital central bank digital currency?

The question of the day.

Ethan now three minutes to respond and closing the negative.

Go right ahead.

- Great, let's start off with my opponents attacks on my case.

Firstly, my opponent mentions that we need to prioritize, that we need to lay the foundation for a federal, for the CBDC.

But the only issue with that is I have proven time and time again throughout my case with evidence that there is no current means of regulation, but also the potential abuse by the government is not gonna be fixed.

Again, all it takes is one potential bad actor, one person with prejudice or bias within power to harm people.

As I've mentioned, as I mentioned with any Investopedia evidence, it could stop people's transactions.

What happens if one person targets like a specific community and oppresses them economically.

We will be coherent with China with their human rights violations.

Again, in the status quo, China is the leader in CBDC and we're using it as a surveillance program in order to actively oppress for civilians and again, in response to regulation, my opponent mentioned how cryptocurrency made downfall that we need to like start building ourselves up.

Again, not everyone has access to the internet.

If you hide either you're gonna increase inclusion is not, there because when inclusion is not, because not everyone has access to the internet, financial literacy or the phones.

Basically, you're just gonna be saying here we have a new digital form of currency, which is going to allow us to have more money, now let's move on to the affirmative case.

My opponent mentions the U S needs to be centered on the global stage.

I agree the U S should be centered on the global stage and move away from authoritarianism by implementing a central bank digital currency we are a coherent with dictators.

Again, China is the major example within today's round of a state with a central bank digital currency actually enacted, that is a threat.

Again, they are using this to actively monitor and oppress the civilians.

We need to avoid this, so we are not allowing for there to be an increase of oppression within the United States than there already is in the current status quo.

Now, my opponent talks about how it's easier for people to pay.

Again, even when people that are gonna be able to have easier access or people who are able to afford internet or people who have smart phones or any basic form of financial literacy or have access to basic, to better wealth which in a structural violence system, isn't, you're not gonna see basically what this is gonna do is not gonna really solve inclusion to people that are unbanked.

My opponent across said, yes, they will be helped.

They will be, that the only issue is a federal, is a central bank digital currency.

The issue is not that the issue is too broad to fix with one policy and a policy that would fix it is not going to be a central bank digital currency.

As I've proven time and time again, throughout the round, we need to prioritize a negative bound because the protection of privacy, the lack of regulation, and also the lack of justification.

The lack of justification went unspoken in the last rebuttal, so this argument can be extended again, that is the idea that there is no solid justification for a central bank digital currency that the status quo like PayPal and commercial banks don't already do.

Secondly, prioritize me negative because as I've mentioned, there is the potential abuse for power.

The abuse of the United States to become an authoritarian state is the ultimate impact or ultimate voter in this round and for various reasons, I can only foresee a negative bound, thank you.

- Ethan, thank you very much and finally Sahithi one minute to close, go right ahead.

- I will start by addressing the points that my opponent made against me.

The first being that we currently don't have any means and that the current system that we have is more beneficial to us than cryptocurrencies are with protecting people from fraud and they have more privacy for individuals.

Well, this is simply not true if we take the time to implement a new currency and making sure that we do better just because another country is doing that same task in a different way, doesn't mean we can't take their idea and turn it into something more positive.

So I think that my opponent's case is invalid saying that we have the resources and the tools to make cryptocurrency a lot more beneficial.

It makes transactions easier as I mentioned in my case.

It also makes banking more accessible for everybody because it is open on the global stage.

And again, it helps advance U S technology, which is something that we need to improve because it is what our country is built off of.

- Thank you very much Sahithi Mathukumilli, Ethan Carter we appreciate it, that spirited debate.

Let's go to our illustrious panel now and get their thoughts on what they saw, Dominic go ahead.

- Alan, thank you so much.

First of all, both of you have done a fantastic job with a topic that is literally being debated around the world and you were able to give us a fantastic debate.

So, Sahithi, Ethan, you should both to be very proud as you know your work is not done.

We're gonna give you some questions from the judging panel and then go from there.

Samuel we start with you with your question for Sahithi.

- Yeah, Sahithi my question is about regulation.

We are having a really hard time as a country deciding on how to regulate the current cryptocurrency market.

What gives you the idea that the United States has the capacity to actually create its own?

- Well, we can see with the trends of Bitcoin, which I'm just using as an example, it has a very standard, it has a market cap and so it only goes up to a certain amount.

And if we follow that same format, we can say that it can fluctuate as it does, as a regular currency does in the current market.

And we can build off of those kind of combine those two ideas together to create a cryptocurrency that is completely independent from the federal government's control, but still serves the citizens of America.

- Ed, let's go to your question for Sahithi.

- Thanks, Sahithi I wanna stick with the topic of regulation a little different angle.

You mentioned neediness to stay ahead of the rest of the world, but at this point, the number of people who are using cryptocurrency is infinitesimal.

I mean, it's very small right out there.

Using a central, creating a central bank digital currency is in some senses regulating this.

Do we need to regulate something that is so early in its usage and so small and its uses right now or should we let the market play out before we decide to jump in from a federal standard?

- I think we should do a combination of both.

I think we should definitely see the trends, which is why I said to my third point, that we should observe the market trends and we should start kind of brainstorming ideas of how to make cryptocurrency work in our country as a standard form of payment.

But we do need to observe those trends and this is why we need to implement the digital currency now so that we can prepare for any potential disasters and we can see how the market does play out because it is definitely still new.

But we need to keep the wheels turning and keep technology going.

- Ethan, it's your turn, you're not off the hook.

Sam, your question for Ethan.

- Yeah.

Ethan, it's clear that you really care about the rise of authoritarianism and promoting a sense of justice in our country.

The question that I have is that if we don't, if we decide not to go forward with a digital currency and we lose technological advantage in the world, theoretically, that could make our citizens less secure, and so what's your response to that?

- The idea is our citizens will not be secure again, as I've proven in case the federal government which I've proven has the ability to actively oppress citizens from all backgrounds or target specific citizens.

They have the ability to regulate inside who has access to money and who doesn't.

Again, in theory this is a great idea.

A central bank digital currency would be amazing.

Everyone has the access to pay for whatever they want, even if access wasn't an issue or there was proper regulations but as to mention to the actual question, if we get behind, I would rather our country to be behind and have our people not being oppressed or being under surveillance rather than being ahead and being equivalent to a state like China.

- Ed, your question for Ethan.

- Ethan, same topic again, different bent I can see you're very concerned here about the federal government getting overly involved and oppressing people.

But could you walk me through exactly how much this opens the door for federal oppression?

More so than our current system is the federal government has pretty carp launched a dig into bank records to monitor transactions and to go after anything they need, especially in criminal cases right now, what's really gonna be the difference here with the central bank digital currency?

- The difference is rather than convictions is going to be people's actual ability to spend money and the access to money.

As I mentioned in the Investopedia card, previously in my case, the ability for the government to deny transactions is what a central bank digital currency gives it.

It has lift a system to where if the government is able to survey and say, maybe because of an uncontrollable factor that you have, I'm not like you, I'm not gonna allow you to participate with India economy and I'm gonna try to structurally oppress you.

That is the biggest threat of a central bank digital currency is it allows government to have more active power in that manner.

- Well, Alan, you can tell, we're gonna need some time to figure this one out, they both done a fantastic job.

Give us a second, see if we can do.

- My best wishes upon the illustrious panel.

Let's give the panel a moment to figure out who won this debate and that will give me a little moment to let you know that next week we're gonna bring you the first of our two championship matches.

On December 10th, we'll have our consolation bracket championship with students from Holy Family and Denver East High Schools as well.

Then on December 17th, the winners bracket championship of the 2021 tournament featuring students from George Washington and Cherry Creek High Schools.

What a finish that will be but we have had a fantastic debate here today.

Panel, do you have a decision?

- Alan, barely but it was a difficult task for both of us because both of you did a fantastic job presenting a difficult case, but we, our job is to pick a winner.

You've done your job well, so we gonna need to do our job.

Sahithi we decided that you won this round with very strong arguments within your case.

Also excellent answers in rebuttal to the different arguments presented against your case.

So congratulations to both of you for a fantastic debate.

- Tough decision, thanks very much and thanks to the both of you.

That's all the time we have for our program tonight and I wanna thank our awesome students as well as our illustrious panel.

I wanna thank you for tuning in, it's the support of viewers like you and our sponsors that helps to make this show a reality.

You can catch up on past episodes of this program on pbs12.org and you can catch me on CBS4 for all the latest news and information that impacts Colorado as well.

For everyone here at PBS12, I'm Alan Gionet, thanks for watching and that is "Both Sides of this Story".

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