Bitcoin Forum

Coindesk revealed (https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/01/17/bank-of-america-says-cbdcs-are-the-future-of-money-and-payments/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=headlines) the Bank of America has been researching CBDCs and it seems that they are closer than ever. The report considers CBDCs to have a lot of potential and was a natural evolution of money.

According to Alkesh Shah, "CBDCs do not change the definition of money, but will likely change how and when value is transferred over the next 15 years." He thus added that central bank digital currencies have “the potential to revolutionize global financial systems and may be the most significant technological advancement in the history of money.”

Central Banks are already exploring the whole notion of developing CBDC systems so this may come sooner than one might think. What do you guys say? Ten years ago, I said that it would take 10 years for governments start adopting CBDCs. Now that 10 years have passed, some countries have already adopted it but it is still not mainstream. How long do you guys think it will take for CBDCs to become the norm?

The American's government can just ask every citizens to convert their fiat to CBDC for now to next 7 days, if someone doesn't convert their fiat to CBDC in the next 7 days, any fiat will become worthless and can't be used anymore ::)

This will make panic and CBDC can be adopted for 1 week only, but of course it wouldn't happen since they're still think about the risk, especially the smart contract security. The bank will want to make sure the security is really high, but I think hack anytime will happen, I just hope CBDC is covered by bank insurance.

CBDC is just fiat and nothing different from fiat, it is even controlled by central banks, it is centralized and it is a way government will be able to know more about their citizens money and able to control it. It is the same as fiat and devalues as as fiat. I have been using bank fiat since I was an adult and it is working good and I still prefer to stay in that way no CBDC for me.

Why would a government do that? It would be a stupid reason and no government can do that.

There may be laws, or maybe even the Constitution forbidding them do that.
In short, I think that access to money is warranted for everybody, without the necessity of hardware, internet, smartphones and so on.
And this means that even if, by some miracle, they'd be all on the same page, they still may be unable to do so.

I was wondering, what is the difference between fiat and CBDC. In fact I doubt it will make much difference as the system is centralized and it's also possible that CBDC are more centralized than fiat at the moment.

But maybe, many countries are testing this plan and new technology regarding government currency will be implemented soon. The thing is it's no different than any other fiat or stablecoin so I don't think it will be of much use as an investment asset but it will probably be adopted as a new trading pair on most exchanges.

The CBDC didn't work in other countries, it's possible that it may not also work in the US. With citizens that are used to wider freedom, I don't see them not revolting against the government.

CBDC is good but it has to come with freedom whether they can use it or not. If the option is not present and the government will just enforce it on people, they will fail. And it will take a long time to realize they are failing, more than 10 years probably and while its happening BTC may have been adopted everywhere too.

The difference is a total absence of privacy with CBDCs, as much as the central banks want to say otherwise, and a greater ease of control on their part, with things like putting an expiration date, or punishing you if you consume meat, do not get vaccinated etc. by seizing a % of your money, making it so that you can only spend it in certain places, etc.

This is all potentially, I think that at first it will not differ much from the card payment, to which we are accustomed and increasingly we do it more willingly.

alot of people read title and headlines but lack research

a CBDC is nut where everyone in america has a wallet with BoAmerica
a CBDC is not where everyone in Gbritain has a wallet with BoEngland

its where BO(A/E) have a blockchain to create coin and designate it to payment providers (commercial banks)
people then have wallets with commercial banks on a sub network of smart contracts

think if it like bitcoin  - blockchain coin issuance between central and commercial banks
                   liquid - first sub layer network for federated smart contract multisigs between banks for fast reserve swaps
                   lightning - second sub layer network for customers of banks to use banks as 'hubs' to 'route' payments

where the customers have 2-3 choices of second subnetwork channels(accounts) where imbound balance limits apply depending on type

just like fiat government(politicians) dont watch every transaction
just like fiat regulators(ex-bankers) dont watch every transaction
they get commercial payment providers(banks/hub service) to police/supervise customer payments and report the suspect ones


the 2-3 tier wallet choices are like this
(based on many countries scope of their systems)

bottom tier = £$1k-£$3k with minimal/no KYC
mid tier = £$3k-£$10k with basic KYC
top tier = $10k+full KYC

this means playing around with small amounts like part time wage or giftcard amounts or 'virtual visa' amounts has no kyc where as needing to handle $10k+ payments will require you upgrading to top level account/channel which requires full registration, proof of income, etc etc

..
it will not be the case of "everyone swap next week" it will instead be offered as a new 'account' that your local commercial bank offers with probably some sort of feature or benefit promoted to get people to try it.

then they will start doing things like increasing fee's for their old system while offering new system cheap/free.
heck.. lets play tin foil.. i can imagine extremes of negative interest rates on old style "accounts" as a method of pushing people to move over. or simply multiplying the fee's for old style formats of payments

EG making old style formats 4x more expensive than new style payment format

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above the CBDC chains will be what is known as an "m-bridge" which will be the central banks reserve swap system (like the IMF of fiat)

which many countries are already trialing out their CBDC and the m-bridge system right now. but in small trials of a few cities commercial banks that then peg up to their nations attempts of CBDC which then peg up to the BIS m-bridge for international reserves

Fine and good the government is obviously researching tirelessly on something that the people does not want, why has it not developed more interest on other countries to introduce their own cbdc if they actually think that's what people want, those that have done that already has nothing to show forth as a good and tangible results towards adoption from the people because cbdc is not the solution to the financial economy needs but a decentralized digital currency is which is only found with bitcoin for now.


If CBDC can present to this extent then i believe bitcoin can do more better since it can achieve this far within 14 years, i don't believe in much of the theories from this government officials, if they don't defend the government who else will they.

central banks and commercial banks are doing this because the main payment rail is actually VISA for most accounts. their tap and pay means visa get rich for processing payments. and banks want to get away from the visa debit system and be more direct commercial bank<->customer without a visa middleman

BOA is not a central bank, nor can it issue CBDC or influence it in the US, but only gives its insignificant opinions, as was the case over the years when it came to Bitcoin. This "discovery" is equivalent to parents discovering that they have to change their child's diapers because the child did what children normally do.


Was anyone even discussing CBDC 10 years ago? I am even more surprised that a beginner is discussing this on a forum in 2013. I found information that the first mention of CBDC in the UK only dates back to 2015.

Brace yourselves for what? CBDC is pretty much just fiat with a different back-end(possibly tokenized) anyway. I'd imagine that a CBDC would just be a far worse version of USDT or USDC.

Now that is some sort of ideocracy I am seeing about the CBDC and how it's being portrayed as if something cool agency to help the fiat gain the technological advancement. Unfortunately they are not what should be and they are trying to be something else. Sounds confusing right? Yes why not, that is how they really work in reality. CBDC and SEC are the devil horns which keep fighting amongst each other to gain the control of few of the mainstream assets around the globe. This is rat race between them and nothing is really getting achieved with this. The claim that they would be mainstream adopter in next 10 years is just another gossip around the corner. It won't happen.

It depends on whether you trust private companies that issue some kind of stablecoins and claim that they are backed by something, or whether you trust centrally digitally issued money? It's not that I favor one or the other, but I know for sure which one will fail and become worthless sooner. Of course, CBDC will violate the privacy of all those who will use it, because the authorities will have direct insight into all our transactions, but isn't that the case with card payments today?

For now, CBDCs are very far from mainstream. I think more countries will adopt them, especially those where digitalization is already at a high level. The situation is harder with Euro due to EU bureaucracy and since EU has both countries with very high level of cashless payments (Sweden) and a surprisingly low level (Italy, Germany). I don't think societies which are used to cash would be open to CBDCs, but those like in the UK which largely already pay by card or phone probably wouldn't feel a big difference. In any case, I hope countries don't fully switch to CBDCs because this can be a huge issue at some point. Here's an example. In Ukraine, if you live in a big city, you can pay by card/phone in any supermarket, in any café, in most modes of transport. However, who would've guessed that we'll have a time of daily blackouts lasting many hours when you can only pay by cash? Imagine being a cashless society which fully switched to a CBDC and doesn't have banknotes any more or even a way of reintroducing them easily because all transactions happen in principle online, and then for some reason which seemed impossible but clearly is possible (like a full-scale war in the 21st century), you can no longer get by without cash. That's a disaster right there. And given that it's still possible in our world (whether due to missiles or due to energy crisis), CBDCs just can't replace fiat yet.

CBDC will take over the fiat market in next few years. It has two legs to it. The first leg is convenience which is the USP for the retail users like us. Another leg is full transparency to the government. Financial Anonymity will become a thing of past with the implementation of CBDC. So whether we like it or not, CBDC will be implemented in all major economies in next few years.

Even India has started trial run of CBDC and planning to implement it for commoners like us in next two years. However, it should not impact the crypto market in any way!

Yeah, right!
So, this is 2023 and back in 2021 we had the same thing:
https://beincrypto.com/bank-of-america-digital-asset-research-team/

So the difference between these articles is that now we have this statement:
rather than one on the nearly same tone about transferring value via CBDC and taken two years ago and a timeline that goes to somewhere in the next 15 years something will happen.
Not too much "bracing" for impact!


Can you link to your 10 year old post where you claimed and discussed that?

Who cares what the government decided to do with their little digital token, I don't see it changing my way of leaving which is most important to me. And from what I know, there is a choice to be made if they eventually made it public. Plus it will still serve as normal fiat which has no big difference.

I think Shah is defining more of bitcoin than CBDCs.  :P

Depending on how the government that has it will start to implement it. They can just announce it and force the people to use it but as long as the interest won't be forcefully pushed then it may still take time.

We don't know, as we usually say, just a matter of time until they are already popular and known due to the government's support. That will certainly play a role.

I quite agree with you on this franky1 that central banks are looking for ways to disconnect from the interconnected fee processing for a visas, master cards and the rest of the other payment processors.
CBDCs will offer the banks such facilities but the point to note is that most CBDCs are not blockchain based so at that there is no difference between CBDCs and vs fiat system, the central bank in my country Nigeria is currently developing a national domestic card that will migrate the citizens from visa and other cards processors. But that is after the CBDC e-naira failed to meet up with that role of providing an alternative to cryptocurrency.

History of fiat in the last century be like: pegged cash -> non-pegged cash -> non-pegged non-cash. Yeah, not regression, evolution!  :P

Easier to happen, no doubt. But, couldn't the same be said for electronic fiat nowadays? It's happening in China, but not in most countries of the EU. I've never heard of anyone having their bank account closed for not getting vaccinated.

It will be a USDT, but it won't be backed by USD, because it'll be itself USD.

Still, I can't understand why we should care about the CBDC because if you look deep inside it you will easily understand in the end CBDCs are just similar to the old traditional fiat and there is not any special thing about them because just like other governmental products, CBDCs are centralized and can be monitored and controlled by the government, also unlike what Alkesh Shah said, I think there is not any potential in this field because people are no more interested in these systems which can be controlled by the party elements.

Yes it is pretty much fiat. But it is digital fiat which will still be controlled by central banks. And worst, with CBDCs governments can do what they please the same as they do with fiat but it would give them even more power over the common citizen's wealth than ever before. It is not the same a pure and simple cash wich you can stach under your bed. With a CBDC, citizens become totally dependent on what decision a central bank may take over their wallet.

From what i know all these adoptions are still in pilot program stage and that's really far from adoption. Most companies have ton of different pilot programs that doesn't really go anywhere. They are just testing new ways to save money and being more efficient which is something most big companies should be doing in order to grow.

But if you know something that i don't, please share it.

https://rmx.news/italy/italian-city-plans-controversial-social-credit-system/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Hns_syl3k

"We should not become Italy" they said. ::)

It doesn't answer the question though. People (or at least people who don't live under communism) haven't got their bank accounts closed until now. I'm sure they'd react.

This is a pilot run... not the fully-fledged version. ;)

USSR communism was also a pilot run, beta testing if you will. Now they're preparing the release candidate, since the USSR era didn't have so much technology.

Regarding bank accounts (and real estate):

https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1180475/russian-embassy-says-bank-accounts-of-citizens-frozen/
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/economy/greek-banks-freeze-accounts-of-russian-nationals/2543735

Whoever thinks they're going to only target Russians is gullible...

Most people don't get it, but the roles have reversed:

Russia under Putin has old school capitalism.

EUSSR under Ursula is slowly turning to communism... the signs are pretty clear, but it won't happen overnight. One step at a time.

"we want to stop.money laundering", "we want to ensure our international sanctions are effective", "we want to keep our currency and markets secure".

Sure, if you do it in 7 days, inflation will rocket, stock prices might sour (and then reverse), your currency might tank compared to others in value (if there's too many restrictions). The US can't do a thing like that and neither could Europe, but China and countries similar with high inflation or bad relationships with their local currency might find reason to try it at some point as it'll offer them a huge amount of data and tracking potential.

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If a CBDC interacted with banks, would anyone have a bank account? If it offered a fixed 2% return then I guess bank accounts would either have to out compete it or linger with old investors that don't know any better than storing their funds there (or ones apposed to change).

if you want to know statistics of how "fast" a country can implement and default a CBDC. look at how the UK swapped from the cotton/paper bank notes to polymer notes. and also how the queens face will be replaced by the kings face and swaps not redeemable after X date

in short: 1 year+100 days (15months) is one example in reality of taking old cash out of circulation to replace it with new style 'cash'

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2022/june/100-days-left-to-use-your-paper-20-and-50-banknotes

CBDCs and their potential economic impacts are fascinating to major financial institutions. However, CBDCs are state-issued currency. These options are cheaper and faster, but they can't match completely decentralized cryptocurrencies' privacy and security.

CBDCs will threaten bitcoin but not the banking system, contrary to popular opinion. CBDCs may be faster and reduce transaction times than blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, but they lack transparency and security. I believe crypto and blockchain technologies will shape money and payments regardless of CBDC adoption.

I haven't had too much time to look through the OP's post history, but maybe some things got a little mixed up for him because he registered on the forum in 2013 - although searching the forum I found some posts that mention CBDC even then, although I'm not entirely sure if it's being done about the same thing we are talking about today.

Given that the OP makes a post after our posts, either he can't find a relevant post or he realized that he made a mistake, and in any case it would be polite to clarify what exactly he meant.

back in the 2013 era there were talks a government digital currencies but the buzzword CBDC didnt become a come buzzword till later years

back then(from memory) they used buzzwords more like DLT (decentralised ledger technologies)

Confidentiality should not be confused with anonymity. With anonymity, any information about the participant in financial relations is completely absent, and with confidentiality, this information is hidden for free access and access is available only to certain officials who can disclose it only in certain cases specified by law. Therefore, there was no anonymity in relations related to the currency of states and cannot be. But the level of confidentiality can be different, and for example, European countries are in favor of a significant level of confidentiality in CBDC. Here, the state is trying to eliminate or reduce the possibility of fraudulent and other illegal actions with their currency, but for certain officials of this state, information about the participants in transactions and all the conditions of transactions will not remain a secret.

Let's be patient then, and see.

Craziness. I remember I had watched a short video of some UK secretary (I think?), which was supporting CBDC. I think it was Rishi Sunak. So repealing of cash has began in the UK?

I don't think there's much to prepare for this. CBDC is just another form of regular fiat. because its value is the same as the currency value of each country that adopted the CBDC itself.

Even I don't think CBDC will change anything. because even without CBDC, today remittance has become practical by means of money transfer through digital transactions between banks. and digital money transactions also take place quickly.

CBDC for me is just a path chosen by the government in an effort to reach its people who are interested in the cryptocurrency system. and still CBDC doesn't change anything because it's still centralized inside. it's just that the advantage is that because it uses Blockchain, transactions become more transparent.

I support the government's efforts in the adoption of CBDC. because this is indeed needed in adapting to the development of today's digital world.

However, I also hope that the Government pays more attention to whether the majority of citizens are equipped with qualified insights on this matter. especially those who are not young anymore. For young people like us, of course this is normal. because we are used to transacting via digital channels. but for the elderly maybe they need more education from the government. So I hope the government will also pay attention to this and prepare from an educational perspective. so that when the CBDC is ready and the community is ready to use it.

Is it really running? Implementing the first time is akin to risking fiat existence (security, reputation, affordability). It shouldn't get a single failure at the start or else the whole system will crash including the old one. I don't think their trial phase will be finished for another 10 years especially if people's need or interest is still more for physical money.

CBDC is unavoidable when it comes to technological advances, automatically the government touts finances to switch to CBDC. In order to save the state treasury, the people have stepped more independently and intelligently in securing their wealth in crypto. Instead of traditional fiat, the government realized that sticking with paper money without considering digital finance was a loss-making move. When America started this step, it is possible that other countries will soon follow.

I think he is misunderstanding CBDCs with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is responsible for that significant technological advancement and revolution, not CBDCs.

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Actually, aren't CBDCs the same of stablecoins, with the exception stablecoins are issued by private companies and CBDCs by governments? What do you think? If so, there is nothing inedit on this concept.

I am still of the perception that not much would change about how people will react towards a system that functions on the CBDC. Most of all, not compared to cryptos in itself. It still remains a CB backed currency with it being a digital fiat, not less centralised and so, its still going to come with some bias.

Cryptocurrency will as well continue to hold its position in our society, being something above government influence even in the face or regulations and it is its decentralized and unregulated nature that would ensure it strives.

Let the CBDC come, the narrative still isn't going to cause ge in respect to cryptocurrency but, would be as per how fiat is been used or issued.

While central banks are known for setting interest rates, I do not remember them doing much in terms of currency minting or commercial banking. It is possible central banks are not well equipped to develop and deploy CBDC. Not only might they lack the personnel necessary to complete the task, they might also lack the infrastructure, communications channels and software necessary. All of which could take years and billions of dollars to develop and rollout within a reasonable timeframe.

While commercial banks are incentivized to produce value at high efficiency and minimum cost, the same precedent may not apply to state sanctioned entities like central banks. This may become apparent in terms of venezuela's central bank not doing the best job rolling out their own CBDC. I would be curious to know what would happen if venezuela attempted to deploy their own NFTs. Could they do it within a reasonable timeframe in a cost effective manner? Perhaps its safe to say that central banks do not have much experience with these types of tasks that have a learning curve to them. It could take time. Perhaps even decades before we see CBDCs deployed in earnest.

I used to be a bit frightened by the notion of a centralized, transparent and regulatable government money. But lets be honest here, even when or if some government in this world decides to enforce such a money system on the people, they will automatically run towards freedom. Towards Bitcoin, the complete opposite of that system. And Bitcoin has proven time and time again that it is impossible for any government to control it. CBDCs will be a failed experiment which only pushed people into the right direction. At that point BTC will become the one global money.

Most people in the world aspire to slavery, not to freedom.  The CBDC project can be very successful. 

People are actively moving away from cash, despite the fact that cash is a real freedom and lack of control from governments and banks.  Currently, people are actively using bank cards, with the help of which commercial banks can track all the expenses and incomes of their customers. 

CBDC is just a further evolution of cashless payments. 

At the same time, this is a real opportunity for the state to build a financial system that will allow the government to effectively intervene in the economic processes in the country.

https://i.redd.it/7ax5q4asvxca1.jpg

 ::) :o ;D

It will be more interesting if these banks will also notice the cryptos and realize their worth in case they haven't yet but I think this one is rare. If there are ones that they will embrace first, it would also be the currency which are closer to them. This is of course the CBDCs. It's impossible that they will miss it since the government and other banks, are also recommending it to them.

Don't worry; people in the forum already know that CBDCs are a far from a real crypto and we will never support it. Only the people who thinks that CBDCs are beneficial are the people who are not into cryptos. These people will never learn.

@cryptosize, first of all, learn how to resize an image because this way you do it is not appropriate for the forum (the page loads more slowly, some users have very slow and limited internet traffic).

Secondly, who is this woman and why would anyone believe her? Money doesn't just disappear from the bank account, and maybe "Sandy" should be a little more careful with whom she shares her card and how much she spends.

CBDC is the natural evolution of money? they fantasize, since long ago every medium of exchange was determined by the people and the government never issued it but over time, the government tried to control the medium of exchange and monopolized it and there was even a government in a country that printed money as they pleased.

the natural evolution of money is cryptocurrency and bitcoin is the leader, those who reject cryptocurrency reject the evolution of money and CBDC is just a tool for the government to control their citizens more and more.

Evolution is not necessarily a movement from bad systems to good ones. 

Evolution is a process of struggle and development of various systems, in which the most adapted to given specific external conditions win.  The CBDC has a very good chance of winning this fight, as they have the support of almost all governments and their Central Banks. 

The CBDC system is opposed by commercial banks, large corporations and cypherpunks.

I have to say cash is not freedom, neither bank cards obviously, and nor CBDC will be. None of them are the real "freedom" that we need. Bitcoin is sort of there, it's not fully there but it is decentralized so it is by far the best one out there so far, and it will stay like that until something better comes along.

Freedom is not given to us but we need to take it, nobody would give up their billionaire life and government overwatch just because they should, they give it up because you force them to. And in order to do that we need something even better than bitcoin, but it is at least better than anything in the fiat world, and that's something.

The "step closer" is actually here. I believe the United Kingdom WILL take the step INSIDE the CBDC world. They're probably in "Stage One" with Britcoin.


Perhaps some of you readers don't understand that "1984" reference. It's the title of a novel about a dystopian future when everyone is monitored, languaged is simplified and manipulated, and all information goes through a centralized entity called "Big Brother".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

I think it will be sooner than we think. The people in government know how to manipulate and implement usage of things and if they want mainstream adoption in a couple of years sooner than we think, there is a strategy to achieving it. If the government reduce the amount of physical money in circulation and encourage people to switch to CBDC's for transactions, it will be a difficult change for people to adapt to easily but in a short time people will get along. CBDC's have their own advantages, the only thing is that they are controlled by the government, mainstream adoption of CBDC will increase awareness people have about another digital form of currency which is cryptocurrency.

In my opinion, cash is the best money for people who value their freedom. 

Previously, cash was made from gold and silver.  Since gold and silver are precious metals, no tyrant in the world has ever had the opportunity to devalue your money.  Yes, he could kill you and take your money, but he couldn't devalue it. 

Then the money began to be issued in paper form, and then it was announced that banknotes were no longer backed by gold and could not be exchanged in the Central Bank for gold bars.  This has allowed governments to devalue your money through inflation. 

However, you still had the opportunity to make money transactions anonymously and confidentially.  You could make payments to any person and buy any (even prohibited) goods, works and services. 

The freedom of people was further limited with the beginning of the mass use of plastic bank cards.  Banks began to monitor the money transactions of their customers and block their accounts in case of suspicion of committing some kind of prohibited activity. 

The introduction of the CBDC symbolizes the complete loss of freedom of monetary circulation.  CBDC is, in fact, a digital money concentration camp in which the money does not belong to you, and your right to use it can be revoked at any time.

A bit contradictory, isn't it?

Nobody can devalue BTC in the long term...

I really love Bitcoin... 

However, I have to acknowledge the fact that great efforts are currently being made to ensure that the famous principle (1 BTC = 1 BTC) cannot be applied. 

One of the main properties of good money is the fungibility of coins (one coin = another coin).  However, Bitcoins are currently not fungible.  A new coin just mined by a miner is worth more than a "dirty" bitcoin that was previously misused. 

Some users even got into the habit of regularly checking their Bitcoins for trustworthiness, figuring out whether they belong to white, gray or black (criminal).  This is not very good ....

It is consoling that, in addition to Bitcoin, there is also such an anonymous and confidential cryptocurrency as Monero (XMR). 

Monero is a true digital cash currency of the 21st century!

If only someone invented a form of money that can't be censored.

 8)

In a world where CBDC's adoption grows more and more, I'm sure that the growth of people who value their freedom to transact will grow more and more too. There's just one path towards that and all of them lead to Bitcoin. We are indeed early, because if everyone knew what was going on, Bitcoin would have already surged to six digits.

With digital money accounts, they can literally cut you off from the real world within a blink of an eye . They can impose a modern form of coercive detention on you without putting you into prison. What happens if you have a dispute at court and they obviously want some answers from you, answers that might incriminate yourself and it's not even true. Perhaps they can put you under pressure by blocking certain or all functions of your digital money account. in fact, if cash doesn't exist anymore they could cut off every lifeline that let's you participate in real life. I think it is going to end in a surveillance and oppression disaster. It doesn't even have to happen the obvious way.

Not many people are aware of how the Pegasus spyware has already gotten out of control (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/08/us/politics/spyware-nso-pegasus-paragon.html). Even when they claimed to not use it at all or, if they use it, only in more or less specific cases and not in an arbitrarily prevalent way, it now got out of control. Of course it did because governments cannot resist. Even if they initially had good intentions (which I don't believe), they just can't resist.

And CBDCs are a surveillance and control junky's dream technology! They can create mobility profiles, spending profiles, mental and physical health profiles, etc. That's a horror scenario for the future and it plays into the hands of big corporations. Good luck getting reasonable insurance rates when they know more about you than you know about yourself as you have no idea what score they apply to you based on the data they own and put together about you.

The solution?

The "Real World" of CBDC/digital account is what's making Bitcoin have real value, which also gives logic to the HODL = never converting your Bitcoin back to the fiat system. With Bitcoin, you are self-sovereign, they can't censor your transactions, and they can't take away your wealth from you.

Like you said, but to illustrate more, let's pretend that it's a CBDC World with NO cash/paper-money. How can you buy Heroine from Mr. Drug Dealer? It's a risk because your identity is tied in your every transaction in CBDC, plus a central entity can censor the transaction AND lock you out of your account because you made an illegal transaction. I am very confident Bitcoin will have value, REAL VALUE in such a world.

BTC with LN (CLN/BOLT12 privacy extensions) and Monero/XMR...

I think you are directly playing to opponent's hands with arguments like that. Like only usage for confidential small transactions would be heroin. There are people who need confidentiality because they just don't want someone to see what they are buying or are embarrassed about their purchases.

Thing is, there won't be a full proof AML surveillance system because people need privacy and there are other forces in play then just people who want full 24h surveillance. People in democratic countries will be still electing people who see privacy as human right.

FATF travel rule for money will just be more difficult for criminals, but it won't eradicate money laundering. It will just make it more difficult. So most likely platform for CBDC will be privacy preserving because the majority of people will demand it. Only way i can see this happening to use ZK based platform as everything needs to be confidential but auditable at the same time.

No, because in a CBDC world without cash, what can you use to pay Mr. Heroine Dealer? Plus it's just a mere example, an extreme one, showing the fact that Bitcoin will be the last taken path to transact freely in a CBDC world. That must have some value in such a world, no?


That's simply not true anymore. It's slowly becoming more and more intrusive.


I will respect your opinion, but let's just agree to disagree.

But will they? How sure are you? As far as my world view goes, people don't care about their privacy as much as they should. I think there is a reasonable doubt that people will prioritize politicians likewise.

Most likely? Is this the most likely scenario in your opinion?  :P

Here's a fun fact: PayPal, the most popular and used financial institution as we speak, switched to authoritarian last year (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5416501.0), and people didn't give a shit.

Money that cannot be censored has already been invented - this is Monero (XMR).  Monero is the complete opposite of CBDC. 

CBDC is centralized money, Monero is decentralized money.  CBDCs are completely devoid of the anonymity feature.  Monero is one of the most anonymous and confidential money protocols.  CBDC was created as an element of a digital concentration camp, Monero was created as an effective tool to overcome prohibitions in the financial sector. 

After the widespread implementation of the CBDC system, it may turn out that Bitcoin is not anonymous and confidential enough to function in parallel with the new financial system. 

Then a more anonymous cryptocurrency may come to the forefront, whose users will be better protected than Bitcoin users.

For those under estimating how much of a threat CBDC's are, even more so than paper based currencies -- understand that most banking is done digitally. It would not be difficult for a token based system to be introduced forcing private banks to adopt the central banks currencies. And of course, citizens wouldn't be left with alternative options. The entire point of CBDC's is to give central banks even more power in regulating the economy. It's much easier to generate new digital tokens than it is to modify a country's balance sheet in case it wants new currency.

If a new anonymous cryptocurrency should surface, one thing Bitcoin users have been exposed to is the fact that Bitcoin has provided a more trusted service and has proven to be stable compared to other crypto. The competition would be there of course.
With CBDC however, it is just digital money of what you have in your bank account. I don't see how its operation is supposed to be anonymous in anyway, but with it getting more revised, Bitcoin is not going to be as decentralized and transactions would be easily pinned.
The goal is to track laundering, other neferous activity and with more decentralized technology being in place, it is only matter of time before this is achieved. Monero  as said would have to convince with trusted service over a duration before other users plunge in.