By David Haggith, 11/16/22
For years, I’ve written about the creeping approach of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as a replacement for coin and paper money that will give government much deeper control over you. Now the time has arrived … IN THE US. Yesterday, The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published the following notice:
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York today announced that its New York Innovation Center (NYIC) will participate in a proof-of-concept project to explore the feasibility of an interoperable network of central bank wholesale digital money and commercial bank digital money operating on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger.
The Federal Reserver Bank of New York
“Distributed ledger” implies something like a crypto currency, but in this case, a digital currency that is centrally controlled though a ledger the Fed operates that is distributed among all banks. Essentially, the system will allow all banks that are members of the Federal Reserve system to transact their customer’s digital currency on a ledger that works between all banks before they settle through central-bank reserves automatically.
In simple words, the Fed is beginning to work out its operations with actual banks for the introduction of a digital dollar to replace the dollar we now have. However, this digital dollar will be much more integrated with the Fed and Feds than cryptocurrencies are.
The cashless society is becoming real — very, VERY real, very, very fast
A few years ago, I reported in my Patron Posts on China’s roll-out of its test version of a CBDC just before they actually rolled it out. Then this spring, I reported how President Biden had just issued an executive order in March to prepare by November for the early stages of a roll-out of a digital dollar. And now we see it happening.
First, I reported in a Patron Post last March how President Biden had said at a business roundtable,
Now is the time when things are shifting and there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. We’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it…
— President Joe Biden at a business roundtable on Monday (Real Clear Politics)
Of course, another “new world order” will include a new-world currency at some point to maintain US hegemony, and the president within days made that clear as well. So, in April I wrote another Patron Post saying,
That’s why we finally witnessed this month actual news of the Biden Administration taking a significant step toward the introduction of a US CBDC from the Fed. This month we shifted from an internal central-bank-level discussion to having all government agencies join the conversation during the next six months about actual implementation and how introduction of a CBDC will impact their agency for better or for worse:
“Epocalypse Revisited Part Four: The Cashless Society and the New Digital Dollar Divide. It’s here!“
“The [executive order] directs the U.S. Treasury, and other federal agencies, to study the development of the new CBDC and report back within 180 days of the potential risks and benefits of a digital dollar. The EO also directs the Treasury Department, Office of the Attorney General and Federal Reserve to produce a ‘legislative proposal’ to create a digital currency within 210 days, about seven months. The digital dollar is coming, and it’s coming quick.
“To be clear, the adoption of a digital dollar by the U.S. government, as Biden intends, would be one of the greatest expansions of federal power ever made. The digital dollar would be much different than a digital version of the existing U.S. dollar. It would also be much different than cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum, which are decentralized. Digital dollars would be traceable and programmable. The Federal Reserve, or some other government agency, would have the ability to create digital dollars at whim. Moreover, the digital dollars could be programmed to have various rules and restrictions governing how and when they are spent….The EO even states the CBDC and other policies governing digital assets must mitigate “climate change and pollution” and promote ‘financial inclusion and equity.’” (Economic Prism)
All the things I warned about in these Patron Posts, while saying they would be awhile, yet, in coming, are now slated by the president of the United States to be established in law this year.
I was on this well before word of it came out in other mainstream publications like The Hill which didn’t come out with it until late this summer, and then even The Hill noted it was a nearly lone voice when there should be many. As of yesterday, we now have the Federal Reserve testing the operability of a digital currency to proceed the actual roll-out through its most globally influential New York branch.
In Fedspeak, that sounds like this in yesterday’s announcement:
“The NYIC looks forward to collaborating with members of the banking community to advance research on asset tokenization and the future of financial market infrastructures in the U.S. as money and banking evolve,” said Per von Zelowitz, Director of the New York Innovation Center.
The Federal Reserver Bank of New York
To be clear, that means money evolves toward a digital and soon cashless system. They speak, of course, in somewhat generic jargon:
As part of this 12-week project, the NYIC will collaborate with a group of private sector organizations to provide a public contribution to the body of knowledge on the application of new technology to the regulated financial system.
The “regulated financial system” means “the Federal Reserve System.” TheNew York Innovation Center (NYIC) was launched at the New York Federal Reserve Bank in 2021 to “bridge the worlds of finance, technology, and [Bill Gates’s favorite word] innovation.” In other words it was specifically started in time for the introduction of a Federal Reserve digital currency. It was also established in partnership with the global Bank for International Settlements. (BIS)
The NYIC generates insights into high-value central bank-related opportunities through technical research, experimentation, and prototyping, to drive advancements in central banking and enhance the functioning of the global financial system.
By integrating with the BIS, the new system hopes to solve problems including the movement of cash across borders. For now, this first banking test run is within the US and is only a simulation, but it is part of the process I have been covering for a few years in my Patron Posts. Recently, in August, I wrote that …
I expect a US central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be phased into actual use in 2023.
“Economic Predictions for H2 2022, Part 3: Battle of the New Currency Competitors“
Well, the testing at bank levels for that rollout just began yesterday, so that train appears to be approaching the station right on time. Some of the major financial institutions participating with this test run are Citigroup, HSBC Holdings, Mastercard and Wells Fargo. Also participating are Bank of New York Mellon, PNC Financial Services, Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD), Truist Financial and U.S. Bancorp.
I also quoted the liberal Hill in that article, which warned about some of the risks and laid out how the Biden administration is charging ahead with implementing a digital currency throughout the US:
Whenever the White House says it is working on a plan that would transform a vital part of the U.S. economy, and that the administration is doing so with the “highest urgency,” it should go without saying that the press should pay close attention to what’s going on…. Even more importantly, the press should eagerly and comprehensively inform the public of the potential risks.
“Biden is planning a new digital currency. Here’s why you should be very worried“
Indeed, it should. But, of course, it did not. That is why you have me. Outside of The Hill, it was mostly crickets all year. Even The Hill noted,
Unfortunately, that’s not happening today, and the effects of the media’s negligence could reverberate for decades to come.
Yes, that claim is from The Hill, a liberal publication. Of course, the March timing of “the highest urgency” that it mentions coincided perfectly with a real-world emergency in March of the Ukraine invasion and all of the globally stressing sanctions that were being developed then in association with the war.
My Patron Post also noted some of the following facts from The Hill, which reiterate what I had reported months before to my Patrons:
- On March 9, the Biden administration released an executive order (EO) instructing a long list of federal agencies to study digital assets and to propose numerous reports about their use and proposals to regulate them….
- But there is an even more important part of the EO: President Biden has instructed the federal government and Federal Reserve to lay the groundwork for a potential new U.S. currency, a digital dollar.
- It would be one of the most dramatic expansions of federal power ever made, one that could put individuals and businesses in grave danger of losing their social and economic freedoms
- The [March 9] White House executive order directs several federal agencies, including the Treasury Department, to study the development of a new central bank digital currency (CBDC) and to produce a report within 180 days of the EO discussing the potential risks and benefits of a digital dollar..
And all of those warnings are from a pretty liberal publication. As noted, the timing for putting forward a legislative proposal for implementing a CBDC would be around November/December with other aspects to be worked out by November.
So here we are. Right on schedule. As The Hill reported in August …
A digital dollar would not merely be a digital version of the existing U.S. dollar, but rather an entirely new currency that would, at least at first, exist alongside today’s currency. Similar to cash, the CBDC would be used to pay for goods and services and would likely be managed by the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States….
Yeah, “alongside” for now until the other US currency (real cash) that still gives you anonymity is phased out as a historic relic.
And, just in time, the perfect financial train wreck for implementation
Through all the years I’ve been writing about the oncoming central-bank digital dollar, I have been saying it would be implemented in a time of financial crisis that would prepare us for it acceptance. And now that perfect coincidence has come. The test project is referred to as the “regulated liability network.” Why? Because it will seek to overcome the liabilities seen in those wild-west digital cryptocurrencies as its selling point. For example,
The new network is meant to follow existing laws and regulations for deposit-based payments processing, including anti-money-laundering requirements.
Bloomberg
Conveniently, the announced testing is happening during a time of major crypto-currency scandals and carnage. I’ve been on the CBDC beat for about as long as its been whispered between central banksters. Clear back in 2019, I wrote that the Fed would try to convince the US populace that …
It is in the “best security interest of the American people” to let the Fed issue the ONLY legal digital currency in order to avoid some of the scandals we’ve already seen (more of which are certain) There are bound to be some digital currencies that aren’t anything other than a digital Ponzi scheme.
“Teasing out the Fed’s Big Plan for our Future“
By “legal” I mean “legal tender.” And a “Ponzi scheme,” of course, is exactly what the latest cryptocrisis has turned out to be. From today’s Daily Doom: “Say “Ponzi”: FTX crash is eerily similar to the Bernie Madoff scandal.” There present Cryptocrisis, which has all players begging for some regulation, should all time out well for the planned roll-out of the new CBDC.
This week’s move [on testing implementation of a CBDC] comes amid a rout in cryptocurrency markets following the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s digital-asset empire last week. [FTX]
Bloomberg
“Bankman Fried” all right. What an appropriate name. If you’ve been following The Daily Doom each day, you know all about that.
The tokens involved in the test are different from the FTX token, known as FTT, that was at the center of the exchange’s collapse. Instead, each simulated digital dollar will represent one US dollar.
On August 7th of this year, I described the present catastrophic crypto scenario regarding how it fits with my the 2019 Ponzi scenario for the actual CBDC rollout in the Patron Post just quoted:
My claim back then [in 2019] was that scandals and schemes [in crypto], certain to emerge, would make the Fed’s CBDC all the more important in the minds of many. While the US CBDC won’t be the ONLY digital currency, the rapid implosion of many cryptos opens the doors wide for the Fed to ride into the cleared-out battlefield like the cavalry with something that will appear to the general public to give similar benefits but with none of the risks that blew up in the grand crypto explosions we recently saw.
“Economic Predictions for H2 2022, Part 3: Battle of the New Currency Competitors“
So, this is all conveniently timing out with perfection.
Now, you know I don’t think the Fed is the one to come in and save us from anything. We need to be saved from the Fed, but most of the US population do not think like me … and most do not think like the cryptoverse either. So, I am certain the recent unravelling in crypto will play directly into the Fed’s hands as I said back in 2019 would happen once the coming out of the Fed’s debutant currency finally arrived. Whatever god central banksters offer their sacrifices to, they were praying or whirling their magic chakras or whatever for a moment just like this to frame the emergence of their champion onto the digital currency scene.
In my August post I also stated,
At the periphery of the US financial world, the crypt bubble has popped — the “periphery” being the fringes of finance where the greatest risks are taken in hopes of the greatest gains — the parts likely to go down before the core of finance. As with the dot-com bust or the consolidation of major auto manufacturers after WWII, the strong hands will survive. However, most cryptos will end as a quivering heap of rust, burning under the desert sun.
Some will survive in this time of consolidation. While I am not by any means a crypto expert, I imagine Bitcoin will rule with a few others … just like the Big Three did — Ford, General Motors and Chrysler — after numerous other contenders like Hudson, Desoto, Packard and Studebaker got absorbed or went broke or faded away. Huge and highly speculative gambles are made on the fringes of new industries, and they may look promising for a long time, but in the end only a core survives, the industry consolidates and fortunes are lost, even if they were a beloved product to many. Crypto is at that stage of a great consolidation.
The Fed will be glad to arrive with its CBDC during a time when the competition from digital currencies that actually do offer a fairly opaque level of anonymity has been damaged. Even more advantageous than the thinning out of the competition, the fear raised by the meltdown will boost the Fed’s public argument for the need of a CBDC with tight and dependable Fed oversight, though a CBDC is of no interest to those who value cryptocurrencies because they are cryptic….
Toward the end of this year and especially moving into next year, CBDCs will rise to fill the void and will probably seek to dominate Bitcoin or flush it if they can with political pressure, but it has such a decentralized structure and wide international grass-roots — and, yes, also criminal — use that forcing it out of existence will not be easy to do.
The Fed, of course, would like to regulate all currency in the US, including crypto, so the plan is open-ended as follows to allow some form of mergence with cryptos that survive the crypto crisis:
While the initial work will focus on simulating digital money issued by regulated institutions in US dollars, the concept could be extended to multicurrency operations and stablecoins.
Bloomberg
Of course, you can be sure that, in order to integrate with the Fed’s CBDC, crypto currencies will have to comply with Fed regulations so they don’t jeopardize or wreck havoc with the system. Becoming “Fed-compatible” is likely to be as big as being “IBM-compatible” was back in the days when Microsoft was born by creating the first IBM personal computer operating system. Anyone alive back then remembers how pervasive that talk was. In this way, the Fed can show it will stabilize the wild-west crypto market with underlying credibility and stability.
The Money of the Apocalypse
Digital dollars are not replacements for cryptocurrencies, even though they they may replace them. Foremost, they are not cryptic in terms of being anonymous. They will be traceable, programmable, reportable, taxable, impoundable, sanctionable, and regulated by the longtime regulator of US money — The Federal Reserve. They will have the US stamp of authenticity as “legal tender for the paying of all debts.” (Though some folks would argue that stamp is increasingly worth less, and I agree.)
For an understanding of how much programmable means — so much within a single word — and how frightening that is, I highly recommend you read Dr. Pippa Malmgren’s article published here a month ago, as she does a stupendous job of laying out how much more “programmable” means than you might ever guess or than even The Hill warned of … or than I’ve warned of, for that matter, and I’ve given a number of warnings in the last few years of writing my Patron Posts.
The Hill’s examples were …
A digital dollar could be crafted to restrict fossil-fuel use, to give bonuses to people for spending at particular businesses, to enact de facto price controls by disallowing users from spending too much on particular products, or even to redistribute wealth….
The White House transcript) promised that in creating a new digital currency, the Biden administration will “continue to partner with all stakeholders [a word loved by the WEF] — including industry, labor, consumer, and environmental groups, international allies and partners….”
Why would labor unions, industry organizations and environmental groups be involved in the development of a new currency — unless, of course, there is a plan to program that currency to advance various causes special-interest groups care about?
That might not be such a big deal, except for the fact that the CBDC will eventually replace its more physical partner (the dollars) as the ONLY money you will have. As an example of the Fed’s involvement in making money fit social agendas, if you’ve been following me, you’ve read from time to time of how the Fed is seeking to make sure its banking policies help implement innovations and programs for moderating climate change. Programmable money would be just the tool for forcing those changes on people once the Fed phases out the physical dollar! (Again, be sure to read Malmgren’s article referenced above.)
“Programmable US dollars may be necessary to support new business models and provide a foundation to much-needed innovations in financial settlements and infrastructure,” Tony McLaughlin, managing director for emerging payments and business development at Citigroup’s treasury and trade solutions division, said in a statement Tuesday. “Projects like this, that focus on the digitization of central bank money and individual bank deposits, could be expanded to take a broader view of the opportunity.”
“Wall Street Tests Crypto Dollars With Fed, Defying FTX Gloom“
More control over money is more control over you and over the way society develops. For example, the government might restrict some kinds of transactions with caps on that kind of spending or create automatic credits that apply to your bank account whenever you make government-desired purchases.
To get you to accept the new digital dollar, I noted a couple of years back you would be enticed into using it by making all stimulus funds in a future Covid-like emergency available solely through Federal Reserve CBDC bank accounts. While the Fed, at the time, talked directly about creating such new direct access to banking at the Fed, I said it seemed unlikely the Fed would cut out the major banks, which effectively own the Fed by owning all the shares in the twelve Reserve banks around the nation with the right for their own presidents to sit in rotating positions on the FOMC, the Fed’s committee that sets monetary policy. So, I wrote about CBDC bank accounts exactly like those being experimented with this month held at large commercial banks, not at the Fed but using the Fed’s CBDC as the distributed currency.
The testing of a system between banks began yesterday, the legislation for requiring its use is supposed to be presented in December, so everything is moving along right on schedule toward that new-world order for implementation in 2023 right as we are entering a catastrophic collapse in crypto currencies that has most, if not all, of the crypto currencies begging for some kind of Federal regulation to create an even and safer playing field in order to overcome the fears created by the latest wild crypto Ponzi scheme.
And how far is it from that to the final days I also wrote about in one of my predictive Patron Posts, which would be this:
It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
Revelation 13:16-18
The words “this calls for wisdom” tell you the passage is a prophecy written somewhat as a riddle; i.e., it won’t bear a simple as “666” being tattooed on everyone’s right hand. And, in that Patron Post, I lay out just how such a system may easily be incorporated not too far down the road into the new CBDC. Now I’m finally going to let everyone read that Patron Post, written for my Patrons clear back in April, for free: Click this link, and then enter “cashlesssociety666” where prompted for a password.
I highly recommend you read it as now is the time, and that article will help bring all these things together for you — the “New World Order” Biden spoke of, vaccines and vaccine certification, authoritarian government vaccine mandates, invisible digital tattoos, the global sanctions and developing financial crisis that is being made worse by them, though it was already long in the making, and reorganization of the global economy and formation a digital financial system to go with it.
Of course, I have shared many other things exclusively with Patrons along the way as my gratitude to them, but the combination of this article, that Patron Post that I just gave everyone access to, and the article by Malmgren give everyone a broad overall picture of the diabolical currency that is finally being tested in numerous major US banks this very month. Now, if you value this work and want it to continue, you need to seriously help keep me going by becoming a Patron, as I am seriously evaluating whether to continue beyond the end of this year for financial reasons — a decision I’ll likely announce early in December to give Patrons time to unsubscribe before the New Year begins if I quit writing on economics so they don’t get charged for a month in which I’m not longer writing. What develops in the next couple of weeks will make all the difference as there is a long way to go to make the hours I spend researching and writing on this each day financially sustainable.
Reprinted with permission.