Choose Your Own Adventure: Cryptocurrencies vs. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)

Any child of the 1970s and 1980s remembers getting creative to find things to do in a world before the internet, mobile phones, and endless streaming platforms (there were only four network television stations). One activity to spur the imagination was reading. There was one type of book which particularly captured a dynamic experience where the reader helped shape the outcome of the story: the Choose your Own Adventure series.

These books allowed the reader at certain junctures to choose the storyline’s direction by flipping to different pages that could take the story in multiple directions. We cannot help but wonder which path the world will take in this real-life choose your own adventure: cryptocurrencies or central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)?

So, let’s jump into our book:

The global economy has been a virtual house of cards for decades with money printed out of thin air to support ever greater debts and spending.

However, that system is breaking, and the authorities know it. Despite promises by central banks of price stability and easing the economic cycle, inflation is soaring, and money is racing out of the system and financial assets. The authorities have been preparing behind the scenes for this inevitable outcome – the collapse of banks and the modern fiat currencies as we know them.

Reading further along…

The first warning sign was trouble in Japan, which was on the forefront of printing money, but that soon created a global tsunami that took only 48 hours to halt all financial markets. People were locked out of their bank accounts and trust in the system was lost. However, each central bank came out with synchronized solution: a CBDC to be credited to each person’s mobile phone in a ration of one new CBDC for every 1,000 units of currency owned. This was a massive global devaluation and reset, but a seemingly visible offer, nonetheless.

To accept the CBDC, turn to page 33.

To fight the authorities’ plans and opt out of the financial system with like-minded people, turn to page 45.

Let’s accept the CBDC and flip to page 33.

                                                                                                             PAGE 33

Despite some initial reluctance, most people are desperate for government help and accept the CBDC. With the CBDC devaluation, everyone is poorer and largely dependent on government handouts, but after a month, at least there seems to be a system working with cheap and convenient transactions. After another six months, some users are finding glitches which create problems using or accessing their CBDC.

Turn to page 66 to see the new warnings displayed on your mobile phone.

Turn to page 75 to opt out and join those that previously exited the new system by declining the CBDC offer.

Let’s see the warning on page 66.

                                                                                                             PAGE 66

The glitches in accessing and using CBDC are now widespread and revealed not to be random. Those with limited CBDC access display several different reference codes.

                                                                                                         (1)

Code 3: You are credited with your monthly allotment of 10 CBDCs, but they must be spent in the next three days on items from government-sponsored retailers and only on approved laboratory-grown food.

Code 5: You have overspent your allocation on non-essential items and will be precluded from buying anything in the category for 30 days.

Code 7: You have exceeded your carbon footprint. Your CBDC will only be good within a six-mile radius of your home for the next six months.

Code 9: You have violated consensus-wide thinking and are penalized with a 10% reduction in your balance.

Code 11: (the most dreaded one) Your social credit score is at risk of falling below the baseline 50 level. Should it drop below that, you will be locked out of all funds for a period of six months to 10 years. Furthermore, anyone in contact with you will be penalized in their own CBDC account under the Deplorables Act.

The great part of the Choose Your Own Adventure series was the ability to peek around the corner. You could start down a path and, if you did not like the outcome, backtrack, and change your decision. As we contemplated the path above for CBDC adoption, we should have all wanted to backtrack our choices and choose freedom.

Is it too simple to suggest that cryptocurrencies represent decentralization and freedom while CBDCs represent centralized authority with the risk of totalitarianism? We think not. Do not confuse cryptocurrencies with CBDCs. They are almost polar opposites.

Truly decentralized cryptocurrencies lack any central authority and thus no power exists over other users. In many ways, cryptocurrencies are the free market’s money. The underlying blockchain technology creates transparency while the system and software prevent any individual member from restricting access to others. Also, unlike CBDCs, many cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin inherently limit their supply (for bitcoin, only 21 million bitcoin can ever be mined).

Are cryptocurrencies perfect? No. However, it is stunning that over 600,000 bitcoin transactions are performed daily with no corporate structure, no CEO, and no employees.(2) Decentralized technology is the future.

Keep in mind that CBDCs are not just “digital money.” We already have digital money; in fact, most dollars in existence are digital. When the Federal Reserve prints money, it is not actually running the printing presses producing physical $100 bills. Rather, it can create digital entries and ledgers out of thin air in unlimited supply. CBDCs are nothing new in this regard. What makes them novel is their ability to be programmable money. Every time you hear the term CBDC; think programmable money. It is programmed by authorities to do their bidding and control the populace through rewards and punishment.

Too dystopian? We are already well into the CBDC story. As proof:

• Almost every global central bank is publicly working on a CBDC;(3)
• Social credit scores are already underway in countries like China;(4)
• Worldwide financial and regulatory organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) actively promote CBDCs;(5) and
• CBDCs have become a recent campaign issue in the U.S.(6)

                                                                                                                   (7)

If we accept programmable money, we face a future where the wrong controllers can restrict access to our own money and create a digital monetary prison.

Perhaps not immediately – but eventually. We must understand the CBDC agenda and share this knowledge with others so people can make an informed decision when they must turn the page in this story.

Choose your own adventure wisely: cryptocurrencies and freedom or CBDCs and totalitarianism.