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The U.S. treasury has recommended the federal government continue researching the prospect and possible impacts of a digital dollar.
The department urged continued “policy and technical work on a potential central bank digital currency (CBDC) so the United States is prepared if a CBDC is determined to be in the national interest.”
Treasury secretary Janet Yellen thinks it is.
“Some aspects of our current payment system are too slow or too expensive,” she said during a 15 September call with reporters.
Already, 105 countries responsible for 95 percent of the world’s economic productivity are developing or have created a CBDC, according to a report by the Atlantic Council.
China has been circulating its digital yuan for more than a year, as we reported in “China Goes Full Digital Yuan in Beijing” (29 Jun 2021) and “China’s Digital Yuan Could Challenge Dollar’s Leadership” (27 Jul 2021).
However, the U.K. and U.S. are far behind other countries in the effort, the council’s report noted.
Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, has said repeatedly that because the dollar is the world’s chief currency, the technical workings of a digital dollar must be thoroughly researched and understood before it could be created.
Proponents argue that CBDCs would offer many of the benefits of cryptocurrencies without the chaotic price gyrations and other pitfalls that have hammered crypto speculators.
In the meantime, several members of Congress have introduced various bills to regulate crypto. The U.S. Securities Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have been jockeying for authority to oversee digital currencies. (See “SEC Push to Regulate Crypto,” 7 Dec 2021 and “CFTC Chief Seeks Authority to Regulate Crypto,” 15 Feb 2022).
“In recent months, substantial turmoil in cryptocurrency markets highlight how, without proper oversight, cryptocurrencies risk harming everyday Americans and our national security,” Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, told a recent press briefing.
“This administration believes that, now more than ever, prudent regulation of cryptocurrencies is needed,” he said.
TREND FORECAST: Back on 24 March 2020, when the COVID War was rapidly escalating, we warned that the United States was going to use the coronavirus scare as an entry point to go from “Dirty Cash to Digital Trash.”
And we noted that just as easily as the masses obediently obeyed their masters and marched off to the COVID War, so, too, when nations introduce digital currencies, they will readily accept them.
And two-and-a-half years later, here we are. Most importantly, in a digital cash world, governments will know who spent what, where, and on what, thus enabling them to steal every penny they can from the workers of Slavelandia in the name of taxes and know everything you bought in the name of national security.