Cryptocurrency executive order…

[Elderberry]

Citizen Free Press 3/9/2022

WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT

Biden signed an executive order today calling on the government to examine the risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies. It’s a long-awaited directive that has had the crypto industry on edge, not least due to growing regulatory concern around the world surrounding the nascent digital asset market.

There had been reports of a divide between White House officials and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen leading to delays in the policy rollout. The crypto market got wind of the executive order overnight after Treasury accidentally put out a statement calling it “historic” and releasing some of the details ahead of time.

The order was finally signed Wednesday. It calls on federal agencies to take a unified approach to regulation and oversight of digital assets, according to a White House fact sheet.

UPDATE — Biden orders work on Digital Dollar…

Jim Rickards
@JamesGRickards
Biden orders work on a digital dollar (CBDC) and cryptocurrencies. This has little to do with technology or monetary policy and everything to do with herding you into digital cattle chutes where you can be slaughtered with account freezes, seizures, etc.

https://twitter.com/JamesGRickards/status/1501576527359758341?

More: https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/cryptocurrency-executive-order/

CNBC Television

CNBC's Ylan Mui joins 'Squawk Box' to report the details from the Biden administration's executive order on crypto.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IId8xEANcko

[rustynail]

Will they force the digital dollar on the USA to ban the possession of cash?

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Isn't this one more example of what Congress is supposed to do in this country, ie enact laws, rather than to simply proclaim edicts like a king?

[Kamaji]

Rod Dreher has pointed out a rather more sinister possible end-goal for these sorts of official crypto-currencies, albeit buried in the middle of another article.

The article itself is this:  This Diabolical Moment.

The part that discusses the central bank moves to official crypto-currencies starts with the following:

There is also this, by the invaluable N.S. Lyons, the pseudonymous author of a must-read Substack, The Upheaval. In the one that dropped overnight, he warns against the adoption of Central Bank Digital Currencies. As Lyons explains, CBDCs are now being discussed by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank as the next step in global finance. Here’s how it works:

A CBDC system would be radically simplified. A customer opens an account directly with a country’s “independent” central bank (let’s say the Federal Reserve), and the central bank issues (creates) digital money (whether denominated as dollars, or FedCoins, or whatever) in that account. This makes the money a direct liability of the Fed, rather than of a private bank. Using digital tools (like say a “FedWallet” app) the customer can initiate direct transactions between Fed accounts. The digital money is deleted in one account and recreated in another essentially instantaneously. No promises or trust is necessary; every transaction is permanently recorded on a digital cryptographic ledger in real time. Kind of like Bitcoin, but exquisitely centrally managed. The Fed retains complete oversight and control over the creation, destruction, and “movement” of money, no matter who “has” it, or where it “is.”

Or as Agustin Carstens, General Manager of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), helpfully put it at a 2020 summit of the International Monetary Fund:

“We don’t know who’s using a $100 bill today and we don’t know who’s using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that… and that makes a huge difference.”

Got that? Central banks would have absolute control over every penny you have. Basically they would do away with cash and make financial transactions much easier. Lyons explains, though, why this would be the greatest expansion of totalitarian power in human history. Elites who control the financial system could alter the digital currencies at will, causing them to hold different values for different people, depending on one’s social status. There is no end of control here. Lyons writes, speculating on how CBDCs could be used:

But why not go higher resolution than that: how about targeted microfinance grants, added straight to the accounts of those people and businesses that are extra deserving? There’s no need to wait for annual tax credits and loopholes when those are now antiquated.

A Fed-funded discount could even be applied to those businesses the people most want to help; Google and Yelp already flag which businesses are or are not black-owned or LGBTQ-friendly, presumably so people can preference their patronage, so why not assist with a little nudge here and there? Or we could go in the other direction and effectively change the price of anything based on the identity of who’s buying it.

*  *  *

*  *  *

We are well and truly f**ked if that gains traction.