Exploring the Practical Relevance of Digital Currencies in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Opportunities and Challenges

The chatter and the evolution of digital currencies have been reaching a crescendo since the 2020s. Recent years have witnessed a growing fanfare in the supplementary role of the digital currencies in achieving the panacea for a green economy. While the available literature has elaborated on the growing traction of digital and cryptocurrencies, the role of central banks in proliferation of the economic benefits of using local digital currencies, the allied economic-social-environmental benefits and costs with the usage of digital currencies. However, sparse studies have canvassed the relevance of the digital currencies in achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed by the United Nations (UN). Thus, the present paper makes an attempt to dissertate on the social and economic implications associated with the practical application of the digital currencies in solving the real-world problems while achieving the goal towards a doughnut economy. This chapter does so by reviewing and analyzing the existing literature on digital currencies and providing a fitting and concise account of the opportunities and challenges posed in the accomplishment of the UN proposed SDGs. Our discussion explains how the application of digital currencies can foster financial inclusion, human well-being, address energy crisis, revamp supply chains, ameliorate labor working conditions and living standards and provides a theoretical framework for the same. However, the increased utilization of energy in the mining process allied with digital currencies, the privacy and legal complications surrounding the digital currencies, poor infrastructural arrangements of a few developing countries all cost a toll on the seamless application of digital currencies which need further attention by the government and authorities, marking the limitations and future directions for the same.