Governor DeSantis Comes Out Swinging Against CBDC’s
Posted on 05/05/2023
Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed new legislation to ban the use of CBDCs in Florida. DeSantis said: “The Biden administration’s efforts to inject a Centralized Bank Digital Currency is about surveillance and control.”
The proposal will consist of the following:
- Expressly prohibiting the use of a federally adopted Central Bank Digital Currency as money within Florida’s Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).
- Instituting protections against a central global currency by prohibiting any CBDC issued by a foreign reserve or foreign sanctioned central bank.
- Calling on likeminded states to join Florida in adopting similar prohibitions within their respective Commercial Codes to fight back against this concept nationwide.
The Governor’s office warns: “A federally controlled Central Bank Digital Currency is the most recent way the Davos elites are attempting to backdoor woke ideology like Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) into the United States financial system, threatening individual privacy and economic freedom. Unlike a decentralized digital currency, a CBDC is directly controlled and issued by the government to consumers, giving government bureaucrats the ability to see all consumer activity and the power to cut off access to goods and services for consumers.”
The U.S. Federal Reserve takes a different, though cautious, view. The Fed seems to back the idea, saying a new CBDC would have no liquidity or credit risk. Moreover, “While the Federal Reserve has made no decisions on whether to pursue or implement a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, we have been exploring the potential benefits and risks of CBDCs from a variety of angles, including through technological research and experimentation. Our key focus is on whether and how a CBDC could improve on an already safe and efficient U.S. domestic payments system.” It appears more likely than not that a CBDC could be on the horizon based on the Fed’s experimentation and clear openness to the idea. The Florida Governor warns a CBDC could spell trouble for regional banks, an already troubled sector in recent weeks.
