CBDCs, Russia, Freedom Money... :)
I don't know if it was Warren Buffet or Charlie Munger who called Bitcoin a "rat's poison" a few years ago, but none of these old farts was right about it. Bitcoin so far hasn't managed to become "the best money" the planet has had, but it is no longer ignored by the big financial players such as BlackRock and others as it was four-five years ago.
The only thing CBDCs have in common with Bitcoin is that both are digital currencies... Other than that, when you look at the principles of both of them and compare these core functionality principles of both technologies you realize that CBDCs are the rat poison of digital money.
So far no country has yet come to the point of actually dealing with such currencies on a large scale. From what I remember, Japan announced a few weeks ago that it no longer has any interest in developing such currencies. China is on a different path, though...
Russia seems to be following suit...
A Russian central bank digital currency (CBDC) could be around the corner, with commercial banks in the country now being told by the central bank to prepare to handle a digital ruble within the next two years.
According to a document dated August 11 and issued by the Bank of Russia – the country’s central bank – a digital version of the ruble may become available and usable for settlement between individuals and enterprises as early as next year.
Meanwhile, by 2024, the Russian CBDC may be used to connect financial institutions to the digital ruble platform, as well as to “increase the number of payment options and transactions available using smart contracts,” the document said. source
Russia needs "better money" because the Ruble is "not as loved" as it used to be after the war started. Swift has kicked them out of the network and they somehow need to circumvent all the US sanctions they(the Russians) got ln their asses for the past few months. CBDCs might fix that.
CBDCs are not the money "retail would go after" because you can't circumvent anything the government is throwing at you when using CBDCs. It's everything under their nose. Banks these days do have a lot of control over one's funds as well, but cash is a different story.
I said many times on my blog that I love cash and crypto and I still stand by that statement. Would not leave the country with millions in cash, though, as some Ukrainians did shortly after the war erupted, but in order to preserve my privacy, I use it as often as I can.
Crypto is probably the best "freedom money" we have and it's not rocket science to figure out why. You can literally store millions of dollars worth of BTC, USDT, or whatever on a crypto wallet, memorize the keys and travel the world with your wealth stored on a blockchain. You don't even need a physical wallet for that.
When it comes to spending without leaving a trace, that's not quite an easy task because you have to do that(pay with crypto) through a crypto exchange or a payment system provided by such an exchange that does leave a trace... We're in this position due to a lack of mass adoption for crypto as a means of payment, but this can change in the years to come.
Look at El Salvador... It's possible to achieve that and the system is working for about a year now where spending sats for whatever, using the lightning network, is no longer something fancy... I guess that's what you can call freedom money, but before thinking we're out of the woods with gaining our total freedom back over our personal finances, don't forget these bastards are working on CBDCs.
Freedom money is not on their agenda. This type of liberation will not be an easy one, but definitely something worth fighting for. Have a great day people and see you to the next post.
Thanks for your attention, Adrian
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