Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced that the U.S. central bank is actively exploring the launch of a digital dollar. As of now, at least two prototypes of a digital dollar are nearing completion, being developed by officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. James Cunha, leader of the project for the Boston Fed, said they hoped to show off their work in the third quarter, and that they “think it’s important that we not wait for the policy debate because then we’ll be a year or so behind” (emphasis added)
This should most definitely be a red flag for discerning readers: as if the Federal Reserve didn't print enough money already (22% of USD in circulation was printed in the time between the end of 2019 and end of 2020, a whopping 9 trillion dollars), now they're further devaluing the dollar by trying to phase out paper money altogether? "Slow down," you might say, "they didn't say anything about phasing out paper bills!" They haven't - for now . But that precedent is being set by the second largest player in the GDP game- China. Yes, the Communist Party in China is at it again. Last year, China began rolling out their own electronic renminbi- their "digital dollar". At the same time, they introduced some radical methods to cut ties with any other value standard: the markets weren't allowed to exchange their investments back into the new dollar, people's real estate ventures were forcibly transacted through the new dollar, gold was no longer offered to exchange with the new dollar, they even went so far as to stop accepting paper money in stores, making customers leave their name and number with each purchase if they wanted to spend some cold, hard cash. Now why on earth would a totalitarian government want a list of everyone who paid for goods with a harder-to-trace currency? To put it differently, why would said government need every citizen to get onboard with their new system?
The answer, of course, is control. Credit cards can be tracked, wire transfers can be caught, but cash has always been the favored medium for crime (crime being defined as any act the government deems illegal, regardless of morality). True, pallets of cash have dye packs, and even a $1 bill has a serial, but in reality transfers smaller than a bank loan come and go with little oversight. The point of a digital dollar- a fully digitalized dollar, rather- is to place any and all transactions under the watchful eyes of the reigning powers. Cryptocurrency does something similar by placing all transactions in the hands of the blockchain. The only difference here is that crucial, ever-present buzzword- decentralization. What China began (and that America is following suit in doing) is a completely centralized and airtight system; which would be forced onto nearly 1.4 billion of its people. By removing that system from all standards of gold, land, stocks, and paper bills, the Chinese Yuan will become a pure number- just a value on a computer, backed by nothing but the good word of the CCP, a government pinkie promise between the lives of billions and financial ruin. If, God forbid, someone were to change those numbers to their own benefit, what would become of the economy? The people? The government? It is scary to imagine a country like that.
Some people may say, "so what? It's not like the Fed has based its paper money on anything for a while. Money printer go brrr and all that"- and what? Would the removal of any tangible objects from the equation be better? Would you want to make minting a billion bucks as simple as adding a couple zeros to a spreadsheet? In short, would you want the money printer to go 'brrrr' even faster than it is now? "But I have alternatives!" you shout. What about other people? And what would financial instability of that caliber do to society as a whole before education, preparation, and adoption finally kick in to the mainstream?
So in the end, it's not about the money. It's about governments having more control over yet another facet of people's lives. It's about individuals calling the shots, including hackers. It's about benefitting the top dogs, those who know the real rules of the game.
Now look around on news and social media, and see how many organizations are calling for a cashless society.