There was an attempt in 2017. I would not give up hope. You can still find people running for office that are not part of the “Borg collective”. You can even find people ready to defend the Constitution in what I would say is the most badly ideologically captured political party in the USA. Specifically, look at the primaries. I was a lifelong independent until recently deciding it was extremely important to vote in primaries. We need people voting for patriots in primaries of both major parties. Go Team USA! It’s not over. Not by a long shot.
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I’m gonna keep that hope with you, However, when it comes to regulation, retail traders never got their way.
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Think George Washington at Valley Forge 
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Here is a pretty thorough analysis of CBDC, that I believe may be important to understand, should certain groups succeed in implementing this:
While I do believe that going digital is inevitable and makes the most sense, I absolutely do not believe that this is the way to go about it. I personally believe that CBDC’s are an effort to keep certain groups (banks and governments etc.) in control. I believe that these groups see cryptocurrency as a major threat and are scrambling to try to replace it with their own solutions that are based on ideas and solutions that cryptocurrency already provides.
This is not good and will lead to a future where we have fewer freedoms, control and privacy etc… This is the exact opposite of what cryptocurrency was meant to do. People need to be aware of this.
With CBDC, you will not be able to purchase a pack of bubblegum without someone knowing about it. They will be able to see exactly where you are/who you purchased it from, how much you spent etc… If you try to purchase something that is considered illegal in your country while traveling abroad (where it’s perfectly legal), the purchase may get blocked.
If a friend loans you money, they will know who, maybe why, how much etc. and will be able to ensure that you pay taxes on every private exchange. If you receive money for a specific purpose, such as an insurance claim, they may be able to assign a specific purpose for that money so that the funds cannot be used for anything else. Same with social security, pension, disability etc… all tracked and strictly controlled.
Perhaps the decision will be made by the government that people are spending too much of their social security on things like alcohol, tobacco, firearms, gambling etc., and that allocations will be assigned so that certain percentages must be used for shelter, or food, childcare and basic needs etc…
Everything that you own, from your vehicles, to your house, to the purchases that you make while traveling overseas, will all be kept on a digital ledger, where everything will be recorded and accessible to certain groups, where ownership can be reassigned, revoked or even deleted etc…
Your purchase history may be used in criminal court, for divorce settlements or custody hearings, child support, taxes, food stamp allocations, government welfare programs, bank loans, credit scores etc…
This is where we could be heading with CBDC, and unfortunately, this is only scratching the surface of what things might look like. Maybe this is an overreaction, maybe not, but best to be informed.
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“Your purchase history may be used in criminal court, for divorce settlements or custody hearings, child support, taxes, food stamp allocations, government welfare programs, bank loans, credit scores etc…”
Going off on a tangent somewhat, let’s now take this one step further: Take a look at online patient portals that everyone now has online access thru their physicians containing their medical information. Eventually the government will also be able to bring up this information which will be shared in conjunction with big industries such as food & beverages. Let’s say you want to go purchase coffee and a piece of cake/pie at a local Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts. Your CBDC will now contain that medical history of yours, and God forbid your latest cholesterol level is above a certain number, the food establishment (pick one, any one) will now be able to see that, and by law will be prohibited from selling that item to you because of your food order’s high fat content - same with trying to buy cookies, ice cream, pizza, fried foods etc from the supermarket or local deli. Ditto looking to purchase an automobile. You accumulated a certain number of moving violations on your license? Too bad then - take mass transportation to get around. Are you unemployed? Don’t bother trying to rent from Netflix or purchasing from your local Hobby Lobby or other crafts stores - you won’t be allowed to, you need to be looking for a job instead. And so on and so forth with other service & product categories.
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It is disconcerting, for sure, the thought of insurance companies having the legal right to audit your purchases to determine what your premiums and deductibles should be. I am really not sure who will eventually have access to what, but with CBDC, the proposal is that the central banking system will be custodian of that data. Unfortunately, data is easily prone to theft and may even be leaked, viewed and/or copied without someone’s knowledge or consent.
At least with crypto, although transactions are publicly accessible, the address owner and nature of the transactional data is mostly anonymous and has the potential to be fully anonymous and autonomous, unlike CBDC, which is the complete opposite.
Now imagine someone stealing your phone and purchasing illegal items under your name. Good luck with that.
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CBDC done right should provide value without adding restrictions. Rule of law is key. Don’t monitor people’s doughnut intake. Make it illegal to do so. The ledger will record everything, yet a warrant should be required to even access that information.
Doing CBDC right is in a country’s beat interest, even from a Machiavellian perspective. Free enterprise and innovation generally wins out over authoritarianism. Smart people will want to live in the free and flourishing country instead of the 1984 hellhole. Warnings are spot on. Although, it does not have to be that way. The country that does it right stands to be like the Netherlands in the 17th century.
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My question is, why reinvent the wheel? What could CBDC offer that cryptocurrency could not?
-This is about control. I believe that we would be naive to think that it is not.
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Stability and acceptance.
It would not be the same thing as BTC ét al and they would still exist.
I am not disagreeing with anyone about the danger or about it currently being about control. I see what has been happening here for decades as well. Still, I do believe there are a lot of us, including some people running for office, that strongly oppose the type of dystopia you are describing.
Fine to oppose CBDC entirely. I will probably vote for anti CBDC candidates as well. However, I would not be opposed to a CBDC if it were done well. My gut says it’s coming eventually one way or another. Probably should start considering what could be done to mitigate risks.
It would need to come with something akin to a sort of bill of rights or EU privacy law.
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Politicians will be grandstanding on this issue to gain votes, however people need to be aware that opposition to the CBDC is just that, opposition, with no attempt to prevent it from becoming a Central Bank currency.
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Not so fast
North Carolina joins FL, SD against digital dollar as states becomes key CBDC battleground
- North Carolina’s House of Representatives voted unanimously to ban the state’s agencies and institutions from accepting any payments in central bank digital currency (CBDC) on Wednesday. With this action, the state joins Florida and South Dakota in opposition to a digital dollar as states’ Universal Commercial Code legislation emerges as a key battleground in the fight over the future of the greenback.
North Carolina Representatives voted 118-0 in favor of the second reading of the state bill, which is designed to prevent any state entity from accepting a Federal Reserve-issued digital currency. The bill also bans the state from participating in any CBDC development activities, including tests and pilot programs such as Project Cedar, the New York Fed’s CBDC pilot which recently moved from the research to the development phase.
Federal government resistance to CBDCs
There is also mounting resistance to the digital dollar project at the federal level. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, re-introduced a bill on March 21 that would prohibit the Federal Reserve from developing a direct-to-consumer central bank digital currency, which he says could be used as a financial surveillance tool by the federal government.
The bill, which is cosponsored by Senators Braun (R-Ind.) and Grassley (R-Iowa), was crafted to “ensure the United States’ digital currency policy protects financial privacy, maintains the dollar’s dominance, and cultivates innovation,” the announcement from Cruz said.
“CBDCs that fail to adhere to these three basic principles could enable an entity like the Federal Reserve to mobilize itself into a retail bank, collect personally identifiable information on users, and track their transactions indefinitely,” Cruz wrote. “It is important to note that while the Fed does not, and should not, have the authority to offer retail bank accounts, it is already looking into what establishing a digital currency would look like.”
The announcement also highlighted the ongoing digital yuan trial in China, which “omits the benefits and protections of cash,” as an example of what needs to be avoided in the creation of a digital dollar.
“The federal government has no authority to unilaterally establish a central bank currency,” Cruz said while introducing the legislation. “This bill goes a long way in making sure big government doesn’t attempt to centralize or control cryptocurrency and instead, allows it to thrive in the United States. We should be empowering entrepreneurs, enabling innovation, and increasing individual freedom—not stifling it.”
The House of Representatives also has implacable opponents to a U.S. CBDC, including Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who introduced legislation seeking to prevent the Federal Reserve from directly issuing a CBDC in February.
The bill, entitled ‘CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act’, was crafted “to halt efforts of unelected bureaucrats in Washington, DC from stripping Americans of their right to financial privacy,” Emmer wrote.
In a tweet that accompanied his announcement, Emmer said “The bill does three things: 1. Prohibits the Fed from issuing a CBDC directly to anyone; 2. Bars the Fed from using a CBDC to implement monetary policy and control the economy; 3. Requires the Fed’s CBDC projects to be transparent to Congress and the American people.”
In a follow-up tweet, Emmer said “Any digital version of the dollar must uphold our American values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free market competitiveness. Anything less opens the door to the development of a dangerous surveillance tool.”
The Minnesota representative previously introduced similar legislation in January 2022, but it failed to pass before the midterm elections in November.
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I understand what you’re saying. In an ideal world it would be great idea. Im a bit bearish about it all. Just like the Patriot Act was the mother of all slippery slopes, I’ve grown skeptical about ideas such as these. There’s a movement to incorporate greater control over society. China paved the way and there are policy makers in the US who want the same here.
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Unfortunately, America started this journey a long time ago
America’s Surveillance State: The Surveillance Machine - Privacy - NSA
With cameras positioned on every street corner and much more invisible spying online and on the phone, we live in what can be called Unite States of Surveillance. Anyone paying attention knows that privacy is dead. All of this is not happening by accident – well-funded powerful agencies and companies are engaged in the business of keeping tabs on what we do, what we say, and what we think.
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-Stability and acceptance could be seen with various cryptocurrencies if governments and other groups did not intervene. Cryptocurrency has not had a chance to thrive in the United States and has been heavily suppressed up until now.
-Yes, it would be a lot worse than BTC et al… Even if cryptocurrency and CBDC can coexist, it is important to consider the implications that CBDC will inevitably cause in terms of prohibiting wider adoption for crypto. I suspect that this is by design. Some merchants that currently accept crypto may drop it altogether, replacing it with the ‘stable, more accepted’ option.
-My position is… does it have to be something that is coming eventually? If we just accept that it is inevitable, then we have already lost. If more people are educated to the facts, then perhaps we can see an inevitable future that is more favorable to fostering well-being, freedom and equality in lieu of more restrictions and less privacy etc…
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-Yes. This is why governments should just create their own crypto coin in lieu of pushing a CBDC that is restrictive and invasive by design. Other than being able to catch criminals easier and enforce compliance, there is no real benefit that CBDC can offer the people that cryptocurrency cannot. The trade-off is simply unconscionable.
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Granted, regulatory action is the cause of part (but not all) of crypto volatility and lack of acceptance.
However, straight out of macroeconomics 101, state backing historically adds stability as well as universal acceptance to currency. Further, the USA benefits greatly from dollar world reserve currency status. I argue that dollar dominance is a benefit to US citizens.
Also, even without regulatory interference, there are hundreds of cryptos. Most people are not interested in having to swap their Coinye for OKcoin to buy a Big Gulp at 7 11. A digital USD free of big brother baggage would provide great value.
There is also a danger in doing nothing. If an authoritarian country were to gain dominance in state backed crypto (possibly even secretly state backed) and displace the US dollar as a reserve currency, we could be on the express route to 1984 scenario.
Alternately, the USA could fall from within and become that authoritarian country. God help us all if that happens. You all are right that having no digital dollar at all is better than a badly implemented digital dollar.
Currently, we are in the middle of a power struggle within the USA. I would avoid nihilistic viewpoint. It is far from over. As a 1st generation American, I think I may appreciate what we still have in this country more than many who have no experience with real authoritarianism. Best case, we retain natural rights while maintaining technological and economic superiority.
I suggest looking at which politicians voted for Dodd Frank and FATCA. Don’t vote for them. Do vote for politicians that have voted for legislation that protects natural rights. Politicians often lie, so look at their voting record.
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We are already well underway my friend. It’s not a matter of looking into the abyss. We are presently drowning in said abyss. FED sponsored currency isn’t going to pull us out of it either.
The only way out of this mess is the states to take their control back from the federal government/swamp.
Don’t look to congressmen to change things. How many have gone to Washington and suddenly forget the issues they ran on? Once they step foot in DC they succumb to the swamp.
Like I said earlier, the power to regain control lies within the states.
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-This is already understood, but backing a CBDC over a US-issued cryptocurrency is not the answer. I welcome anyone here to present a case to the contrary, but I just do not see it.
-I am not sure that this would have to change. Likely, even having a US-issued cryptocurrency could achieve the same result, assuming that fiat is no longer used at some point. I personally believe that a global currency will eventually be used before money is completely phased out at some point.
-Fortunately, this is not the way that cryptocurrency works. I also do not believe that it would devolve to that point, either, because merchants and retailers know that they would lose too much business by having such restrictions. Similar to what we see now, most places accept cash, checks and credit/debit etc… The top crypto coins are primarily used for transactions and most payment processing or exchanges already happen in real-time.
-We currently have a handful of digital currencies that are pegged to the USD, that do not carry any government baggage. Likely, we could even have something that is issued by the US government, that is used as a reserve currency and for tax remittance purposes, and this would still work better than a CBDC.
-Maybe, we could say this about any existing currency, but the odds are just so unlikely to even consider. Maybe I am wrong, but I believe that this would not happen with a government-issued crypto coin, because any government would hold the majority in reserve to ensure that such moves are impossible.
There simply is no reason to get behind a CBDC if it will be structured in the way that it is currently being proposed. Absolutely none. I am keeping an open mind about this and will entertain any arguments contrary to my own, but until someone can tell me how CBDC is better (or not worse) than existing crypto solutions, then I will likely maintain my current position on this.
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-Yes. And this will happen. It is already happening. We will see more being done at the state level as the years go on. This will create more political divisiveness and polarity in our country, though.
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