[Editor's note]

Today, everybody uses a mix of cash, bank accounts, cheques, bank cards, credit cards, and payment apps. None of these are directly controlled by the government or the central bank. Cash is completely free from control and tracing. The rest are handled by a variety of private banks and companies that don't have visibility into exactly what you're buying, selling, paying for, or receiving.

Right now, if the State or any authority wants control over what you can buy or sell, when you can do it, or with whom, that's hard or outright impossible. There are too many banks, companies, and intermediaries involved, and none of them have the complete picture. The government has to go through each one, serve legally binding documentation, and jump through hoops. It's slow, messy, and full of legal challenges.

Today, if the government sends you a stimulus check or your monthly pension, that money hits your bank account and it's yours to use however you want. If they ever rolled out UBI (universal basic income), you could blow it on stocks, hit the casino, book a flight anywhere, or buy booze – or anything else the State might label "illicit."

But with CBDCs, all of that changes forever.

CBDCs are digital "money", though far more like digital coupons that can be expiring, restricted, and fully programmable. They're issued and entirely controlled by the central bank. Your "account" for this CBDC money sits directly with the central bank itself. Your regular bank might still provide the app or interface you're used to, but they no longer manage the actual funds.

CBDCs will force metadata on every single transaction – what exactly is being bought or sold. Merchants already know this (it's on the receipt), but cash doesn't know, and neither do banks or payment apps today. With CBDCs, every approval will include that data.

Like with cards and apps today, every CBDC transaction will require central approval. But now that approval can check far more than just "is it you?" and "do you have funds?" Now it knows precisely what you're doing.

Any stimulus checks, pension payments, tax refunds, or salary from your employer can be tagged at the source and restricted however the State decides. Those funds can expire if you don't spend them fast enough. They can be locked to "approved" uses only. No cigarettes, no extra travel if you've already had your quota this year, no donations to causes the State dislikes. No warrant needed. No courts. No intermediaries to slow them down.

Are you starting to see why the DC in CBDC really stands for Digital Coupons?

And it's programmable control sold as cash 2.0 – tyranny sold as "security and convenience."

This is the State's wet dream.

Playbook. How will they force people into this nightmare? 

The rollout will be sweet at first. Irresistible helicopter money drops, just like the pandemic stimulus checks on steroids. Free CBDC airdropped to every citizen. No expiration dates yet. Almost no restrictions. Merchants get massive tax breaks to adopt fast. Early users get bonuses or better-than-1:1 exchange rates when swapping old cash for the new digital version. But only for a limited time.

Then comes the cutoff. Physical dollars and euros lose legal tender status. Counterfeiting stops being a crime because the old money is irrelevant. Anyone still clinging to cash is left behind.

Only after CBDCs are deeply embedded and everyone depends on them does the mask come off. The controls creep in. Slowly at first, then all at once during the next crisis.

The grand finale

Next time there's a protest the State doesn't like, or someone says something "dangerous," they flip a switch. Accounts frozen, spending blocked. Instantly. No banks to argue, no judges to appeal to.

Want a social credit system? It's already built in, because everyone is using the programmable money.

CBDCs are digital poison. This should be a hard pass for everyone, everywhere.