Tag Archives: Central bank digital currencies

FedNow Instant Payments Are Coming and CBDCs Will Follow, by Daisy Luther

Posted on March 20, 2023 | 1 comment

FedNow will be the camel’s nose under the tent for totalitarian money. From Daisy Luther at theorganicprepper.com:

There’s absolutely no doubt that our financial system is in flux right now. We’re watching a storm approach, and it’s about to envelop the entire nation in chaotic conditions. If you think things are crazy now, just hang on to your halo…it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Remember how we talked about CBDCs a few weeks ago, and lots of people in the comments said never, no way, and heck no? Well, unfortunately, it’s being rolled out and soon.

Of course, they’re not calling it CBDCs. Not yet.

It’s under another name, and it’s not quite a federal digital currency. I’m sure this, too, will be called a conspiracy theory, but the Federal Reserve is launching FedNow, an instant digital payment system. This in itself is not a Central Bank Digital Currency, but it puts into place the framework needed to make the idea a reality.

FedNew will be launched in July, according to a press release from the Federal Reserve.

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The SVB Collapse: How Financial Crisis Boosts The CBDC ‘Threat’, by Kit Knightly

Posted on March 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

Imagine tyranny that will make Covid totalitarianism look innocuous. From Kit Knightly at off-guardian.org:

Last Friday saw the total failure of the Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th biggest bank in the United States. The biggest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis

By Sunday, the Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank had joined SVB in full collapse. All three are now safely under Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) control.

The FDIC has taken the unusual step of fully guaranteeing all deposits kept with the SVB – meaning the federal government will give taxpayer money out to compensate every SVB customer.

But the damage didn’t stop there. Naturally, this put pressure on other regional banks, with two more – First Republic Bank and PacWest Bank – coming close to collapsing themselves, following mini-runs.

The weekend saw Wall Street’s 4 biggest banks lose over 55 billion dollars in value. Bank stocks around the world are sliding in value.

As of this morning Credit Suisse’s stock is at an all-time low, sparking a sell-off of stocks all over the world.

In short, the financial situation is teetering on the edge of a major crisis. But is it accidental? And if not, what is the agenda behind it?

Well, firstly, no it’s not accidental. Let’s get that out of the way.

Does that mean the collapses were planned and engineered to the last detail? Maybe, maybe not.

Certainly, there was at least some warning for people in the know.

SVB’s CEO and CFO dumped a combined 4 million dollars of stock in the two weeks before the crash, and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund withdrew all their funds from SVB the Thursday before the collapse.

That is despite the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation finding that SVB was a “sound financial institution” as late as March 9th, and that it only entered insolvency after investors caused a run.

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Nigerians Not Eager to Embrace Central Bank Digital Currency, by Michael Maharrey

Posted on March 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

The Nigerians are no fools. From Micheal Maherrey at schiffgold.com:

Violent protests in Nigeria reveal that getting average people to embrace central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) might be more difficult than government officials would like.

Nigerians recently took to the streets to protest a cash shortage caused by government policies adopted in order to push the country into the adoption of its central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Protesters attacked bank ATMs and blocked streets, and demonstrations turned violent in some cities.

According to The Guardian, “Nigeria has been struggling with a shortage in physical cash since the central bank began to swap old bills of the local naira currency for new ones, leading to a shortfall in banknotes.” According to reporting by the news outlet, the protests erupted when bank customers couldn’t access their cash or change old banknotes for new ones. Tensions ratcheted up when the government set a February deadline to change old notes.

The problem is there aren’t enough new banknotes to go around, and that appears to be on purpose. Bloomberg called the policy “demonetization.”

According to the Associated Press, the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced the redesigned notes last fall. The plan was to recover about 85% of the total currency in circulation outside the banking system. The Nigerian central bank said the policy was implemented to remove counterfeit currency from the system and to discourage cash ransom payments to kidnappers and other criminals. But there is an underlying reason for the new policy that The Guardian only mentions in passing.

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CBDCs — The good, the bad, the ugly, by Alasdair Macleod

Posted on February 25, 2023 | Leave a comment

The good is not all that good, the bad is very bad, and the ugly is extremely ugly. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

There has been much comment over the likelihood that central bank digital currencies will be introduced. I conclude they are unnecessary — a red herring. But it does allow us to discuss their possible relevance to a new Asian super-currency.

Earlier this month, the Bank of England in partnership with the UK Treasury produced a white paper on the subject, which waters down the objectives identified by the Bank for International Settlements considerably. The British proposal is a bad idea because it is pointless and I explain why. 

In this article, I describe how a new gold-backed currency can do away with the US dollar for trade settlements and commodity purchases entirely between participating nations in the Russia China axis. Some informed commentary on the topic suggests that a blockchain will be involved, and Sberbank, the Russian state-owned lender has already issued a gold-linked fund designed to be available to the public by being compatible with ethereum. Perhaps it is front-running developments…

The ugly side in our title is found in the BIS’s dystopian proposals, which sees CBDCs as an opportunity to allow central banks to double down on their attempts to manage economic outcomes while restricting personal freedom. 

Messing about with fiat currency alternatives such as CBDCs could end up revealing the formers’ fragility.  CBDCs will take years to implement in any major currency anyway, during which fiat currencies led by the dollar are likely to fail anyway.

Introduction

It is not clear what encouraged central banks to think about introducing their own digital currencies, other than possibly a feeling that if they didn’t do something, then private sector money could threaten their monopoly. 

Initially, bitcoin was touted as sound money with a hard stop of 21,000,000 coins and proof of ownership recorded on a blockchain. Bitcoin’s strength was to be the opposite of fiat currency weakness, whose expansion is the primary means by which a central bank stimulates an economy. But if central banks think that bitcoin could overturn fiat currencies, they merely exposed their own ignorance about the nature of money and credit.

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This Was Another Big Week for Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), by Nick Corbishley

Posted on February 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

Like some sort of oozing putrescence, CBDCs keep seeping into the global financial infrastructure. From Nick Corbishley at nakedcapitalism.com:

Another G-7 economy took a big step toward adopting a central bank digital currency (CBDC). At the same time, the first largish economy to have launched a CBDC, Nigeria, descends further into financial chaos.

This week, two big things happened in the CBDC arena. One of the world’s oldest central banks, the Bank of England, and the British government jointly confirmed that a digital pound would probably be necessary at some point in the none-too-distant future. While they were saying that, lengthy queues were forming at ATMs across Nigeria, the first largish economy to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC), as most Nigerians struggle to access physical money following the government’s disastrous demonetisation campaign.

“A New and Trusted Way to Pay”?

Let’s begin with the UK, whose latest Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt this week described CBDCs as potentially “a new and trusted (state-backed) way to pay” that is likely to emerge some time this decade. John Cunliffe, Deputy Governor for Financial Stability of the Bank of England (not to be confused with the creator of the children’s books and animated TV series, Postman Pat) said:

Our assessment is that on current trends it is likely that a retail, general purpose digital central bank currency — a digital pound — will be needed in the UK.

With cash usage in rapid decline in the UK, a digital pound would perform the “anchor function” which cash currently carries, allowing the holder access to Bank of England money, Cunliffe said. It would also counter the risks posed by so-called “stable coins”, which are relatively new forms of cryptocurrency that are pegged to the value of a fiat currency (e.g, the dollar or the euro), while also ensuring that certain tech firms are not able to monopolize areas of the online market with their own coins.

These are all classic justifications for launching a CBDC. But not everyone in the UK’s political establishment agrees that they constitute sufficient cause. For example, the former governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King said in January, 2022: “By far the most important question is what is the problem to which a CBDC is the solution?” King said a number had been proposed but “none of them were terribly convincing”.

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Central Bank Digital Currencies Would Bring Hyperinflation, by Daniel Lacalle

Posted on February 7, 2023 | 1 comment

It’s a lot easier to inflate or hyperinflate a currency when there are no competing currencies available. From Daniel Lacalle at dlacalle.com:

There are many excuses often used to explain inflation. However, the fact is that there is no such thing as “cost push inflation” or “commodity inflation.” Inflation is not an increase in prices, it is the destruction of the purchasing power of the currency.

Cost-push inflation is more units of currency going to relatively scarce real assets. The same can be said about all other, from commodities to demand and my favourite, “supply chain disruption”. More units of currency going to the same goods and services.

The monster inflation we have endured these years first arrived through asset inflation and then through consumer prices. Now, governments and statistical bodies are tweaking the calculation of CPI to disguise the loss of purchasing power of the currency and central banks had to hike rates after the disaster created in 2020, when the massive increase in money supply went to finance bloated government spending and created the mess we live today.

Central banks know that inflation is a monetary phenomenon and that is why they are hiking rates and tightening as fast as governments allow them. However, central banks have lost a significant amount of an already low credibility by first ignoring the inflation risk and later using the base effect and transitory excuse, only to react late and slowly.

This has happened in a world where the excess in money supply growth has a number of back-stops and limits that prevent a massive increase in consumer prices through the destruction of the artificially printed currency. With quantitative easing there are a number of limits that stop inflationary pressures: As the transmission mechanism of monetary policy is the banking channel, it is our demand for credit what puts a break on inflationary pressures.

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Warning Shot Fired! By James Rickard

Posted on February 4, 2023 | Leave a comment

The notion of freedom-destroying Central Bank Digital Currencies is making its insidious way from academic and think tank literature to the general populace. Implementation is next. From Jame Rickard at dailyreckoning.com:

Another warning shot across the bow just happened…

I warned my readers a few weeks ago about how the Federal Reserve, in cooperation with giant global banks, has launched a 12-week pilot project to test the message systems and payment processes on the new CBDC dollar.

A pilot project is not research and development. That’s already done. The pilot means that what I call “Biden Bucks” are here, and the backers just want to test the plumbing before they roll the system out on the entire population.

That project is due to be completed next month. In other words, Biden Bucks are getting closer to becoming a reality for us all. Now there is another big development to keep you up to speed…

This month, the Digital Dollar Project (DDP) released an updated version of its white paper called “Exploring a U.S. CBDC.”

The project expanded the paper in order to examine central bank digital currency projects internationally, though its focus is still on the United States. Since its original white paper release in 2020, CBDC projects worldwide have increased from 35 to 114.

Here is one statement in the updated paper:

It [is] imperative that the U.S. government consider ways to maintain the use of the dollar in digital global payment systems and develop a strategy related to the use of alternative payment systems.

Pigs in the Digital Slaughterhouse

“Alternative payment systems” is simply a technical term for Biden Bucks, which means replacing the cash (“fiat”) dollar we have now. What’s this mean for you?

Let’s first consider the kind of freedom that physical cash offers you. Above all, cash is untraceable and anonymous. When you buy something with cash, there’s no way to trace the purchase to you individually. In that sense, cash is like gold or silver. It doesn’t leave a digital fingerprint.

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The “Great Reset” and the Future of Money… Here’s What You Need To Know, by Nick Giambruno

Posted on January 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

The Great Reset wants a global currency that’s essentially a digital straight jacket for billions of people. From Nick Giambruno at internationalman.com:

The Great Reset

International Man: What is the idea behind the so-called “Great Reset?”

Nick Giambruno: We’ve seen countless examples of the self-identified elite in the West using that term.

But let me first ask, who put these people in charge? Who anointed them the leaders of the world?

They’re not only talking about resetting the financial system but dramatically changing the nature of life.

I think something sinister is going on, and they’re not even trying to hide it anymore. It’s all in the open now.

So, let me try to summarize something incredibly complex.

These people recognize the current international monetary system based on the US dollar is on its way out. Even Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, acknowledges that the US dollar’s supremacy is fading.

Although they would prefer to continue milking the current system, they realize it’s failing and the need to bridge the gap to a new system which they hope to control.

Nobody knows what the next international monetary system will look like—not even the elites. However, they know what they want it to look like.

They want a complete control grid with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), movement licenses, mandatory medical procedures, and a social credit system, among other nasty things.

Simply put, the Great Reset agenda is a high-tech, totalitarian, global panopticon.

In short, they want total control over you in all domains—a new feudalism.

They’re emotionally manipulating people with fear and false narratives into accepting things they ordinarily wouldn’t—like their enslavement.

That’s what their Great Reset agenda is all about. It’s self-evidently anathema to personal freedom, human dignity, and self-determination.

Whether the self-proclaimed elites get all or some of those things is an open question.

The best scenario for mankind would be for most major governments to go bankrupt—which they are well on their way to—before they can implement the Great Reset agenda.

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CBDCs: digital wolves in sheep’s clothing? By John Butler

Posted on January 7, 2023 | Leave a comment

CBDCs are definitely digital wolves and they’re set to devour us. From John Butler at fortuneandfreedom.com:

People like to remark that governments foster innovation, especially during wartime. They also like to ignore the slaughter of millions which is usually part of this process. That is not to mention the innovators we missed out on as a result.

The latest government “innovation,” which follows in a long tradition of stealing ideas from the private sector designed to improve our lives and using them for other means instead, is central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Designed not to exist in any physical form whatsoever, CBDCs would give their central bank issuers entirely new powers. Indeed, much of the manoeuvring that was required in 2008-9 to rescue the financial system with taxpayer-funded bailouts would have been so much easier had CBDCs been in existence. But if easier, is that necessarily a good thing for the economy as a whole?

Nigel Farage doesn’t seem to think so. And he has come up with a plan to counter the government’s efforts.

To answer the question, it is important to differentiate between CBDCs and the concept of private, distributed digital currencies, including those such as bitcoin, that are built using distributed-ledger technology (DLT). In some ways they are opposites.

Rather than offer an alternative currency, CBDCs are mostly aimed at making monetary policy easier to implement and, potentially, more powerful.

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2023: The ABC’s of CBDC, the Great Reset(s) & MORE Centralized Control, by Matthew Piepenburg

Posted on January 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

Countries that are suffering from an excess of centralized control usually double down with more control. From Matthew Piepenburg at goldswitzerland.com:

If you want to understand modern CBDC, it may be worth considering the context of history, the philosophy of man, the math of debt and the geology of gold.

Broke Countries Do Bad Things

When broken, debt-soaked “developed economies” suffering from years of fantasy money printing to “solve” fatally rising debt levels collide with history-blind and economically-ignorant policy makers, the end result is always the same: Liberty sinks, currencies die and control rises.

This is not sensationalism, but the toxic evolution of economic, political and psychological patterns seen throughout time.

Sadly, our “times” (as well as the global abundance/convergence of weak leadership) are no exception.

Or stated more simply, inept financial and political leadership leads to even more dangerous financial opportunists and tyrannical policies masquerading as efficient solutions.

Toward this end, the evidence is literally everywhere—left, right and center.

The Inevitable Klaus Schwab-Type

Nowhere is such will-to-power opportunism and fantasy (i.e., centralized) solutions more exemplified than in the so-called “Great Reset” authored by the head of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab.

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