in recent years governments have been telling their citizens that the threats to their freedoms come from far away countries that many probably couldn't even find on a map in truth these threats to Freedom are domestic now while everyone has been distracted by what's going on overseas almost every major Central Bank has been slowly rolling out cbdcs if they succeed they will take away more freedom than any foreign Force that's why today we're going to bring you up to speed on cbdc developments around the world tell you which countries are the closest to creating a digital
dystopia and look at what you can do to stop them stay tuned let's start with a quick recap Central Bank digital currencies or cbdcs are well digital currencies that are created by a central bank now for context most digital currencies that exist today were technically created by commercial Banks the only form of central bank money we currently use is physical cash if you watched our recent digital Euro update you'll know that the primary reason why central banks are so obsessed with cbdcs is because they're terrified that commercial banks will have total control of digital currency
once cash use disappears or rather once it's phased out to maximize profits of course Central bank's solution to this problem is to develop quote digital cash that they can control you see with physical cash you have total anonymity and total control over your transactions with cbdcs however you would have neither of these things don't take my word for it though European Central Bank president Christine lagard admitted last spring on video that the digital Euro would be used for control now obviously this was a PR disaster and the ECB has been trying to save face ever
since then promising privacy and all the rest nobody believes them though it doesn't help that central banks have been very sneaky about their wording for for example when they say that cbdcs will preserve privacy what they actually mean is that commercial Banks won't be able to see your transactions but the central bank will this has been explicitly stated in a few cbdc reports and on that note it's important to be aware that there are technically two types of cbdc wholesale cbdcs which will be used by select individuals and institutions that is the elites and Retail
cbdcs which will be used by everyone else that is US naturally it's the retail cbdcs that have the most terrifying attributes the Silver Lining is that many central banks seem to be turning their focus away from retail cbdcs and towards wholesale cbdcs if you watched our recent video about the brics currency you'll know it's possible that this is because central banks want to join the brics new wholesale cbdc payment system this makes perfect sense when you consider the fact that retail cbdc adoption has been incredible ibly low take Nigeria for instance the initial adoption of
its enira cbdc was only half a percent it subsequently Rose to 6% adoption but this required cracking down on cash which created serious social unrest and even with those restrictions it was still just 6% it seems that other central banks noticed this and are starting to realize that it's better to focus on a wholesale cbdc particularly because it will help them bypass the need for the US dollar in international trade and bring them closer to the bricks countries but this hasn't stopped Some central banks from rolling out their retail cbdcs and it's safe to assume
that the central banks focusing on wholesale cbdcs today will switch their focus to retail cbdcs tomorrow this is why it's Paramount to know what central banks are planning and how to prepare and by the way if you're enjoying the video so far then be sure to smash that like button Buton And subscribe to the channel and ping that notification Bell so you don't miss our next cbdc update apologies for the interruption folks but if you're looking to get the very best information about altcoins and become part of the most welcoming community in crypto then we
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our belts we can take a closer look at cbdc developments around the world starting with North America not surprisingly cbdcs have become a political issue in the United States with many Democrat politicians supporting their implementation and many Republicans rejecting it outright these latter include Donald Trump he promised to prevent cbdcs from being rolled out in the US if elected president something that he was apparently advised to do by his close Ally VC ramaswami and it goes without saying that RFK Jr has also been anti- cbdc and he is now backing Trump in case you missed
the news anyway when it comes to politics actions speak louder than words thankfully Republicans have taken action to ban cbdcs most notably with the bipartisan cbdc bill passed by the house back in May Republican politicians in Louisiana also passed a law Banning cbdcs and protecting crypto in June meanwhile the Federal Reserve has done its best to stay impartial about the creation of a digital dollar but it's had its fair share of slip-ups these include a paper published in February which claimed that the US dollar could lose dominance to other cbdcs and stable coins without a
digital dollar this is presumably why fed chairman Jerome Powell was interrogated by Republican politicians about the central bank's digital dollar plans during Hearing in March as always Jerome said that it's ultimately up to Congress to approve a digital dollar and it would be a long way away if it was approved what Jerome didn't say was that the fed's FED now fast payment system which launched last summer could evolve to become a cbdc system and its creators seem to see that goal as the endgame more about fed now in the description but back to that claim
about the US dollar losing Global dominance because of stable coins those of you who are familiar with stable coins will know this couldn't be further from the truth the fact that USD stable coins are backed by US Government debt actually means they would boost the usd's dominance this is something that Republican politicians are starting to realize and it seems to be the main reason why they're supporting crypto the catch is that stable coins technically aren't that different from cbdcs stable coins come with the same controls they're just issued by private entities instead of public ones
this is an uncomfortable truth that the crypto industry doesn't like to talk about and it seems to suggest there's a hidden agenda behind the pro crypto push we're seeing in the US and and elsewhere when you realize that stable coins are at the center of crypto policy it foreshadows the same future as cbdcs but we'll come back to all that later now south of North America we have well South America which has surprisingly limited cbdc developments since the start of the year at least relative to other regions the biggest announcement seems to have come from
Venezuela which phased out its Petro coin cbdc after six years for reference Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro ordered the creation of the Petro coin in 2017 as a means of bypassing us sanctions in theory it was supposed to be backed by the country's Rich oil reserves in practice that didn't mean much as the government controlled its Supply and issuance take note at the same time the Bahamas is reportedly looking to force commercial Banks to adopt its sand dollar cbdc which it launched back in 2020 as a fun fact the the Bahamas sand dollar was technically the
first cbdc to launch and like Nigeria's en Nira it has seen limited adoption less than 1% to be exact given that the Bahamas has a population of around 400,000 that's basically a handful of ice cream vendors and a dude selling dream catchers actually using it and as a not so fun fact forcing commercial Banks to support cbdcs is something that every Central Bank seems to be planning you'll recall that fed now is a precursor to a digital dollar well it looks like the FED wants to force every Commercial Bank to integrate fed now at some
unspecified point in the future and yes by the way we know that the Bahamas is in the Caribbean we just figured we'd lump it in with South America to keep things simple now speaking of which across the pond from South America we have Africa and the Middle East and there have been a lot of cbdc developments in these regions the most notable example here is of course Nigeria which is wrestling with the roll out of its enira to the point that it's considering creating a stable coin instead unfortunately though it seems that the enira continues
to be a focus for Nigeria's Central Bank what's even more unfortunate is that even if a Nigerian stable coin is rolled out it would have the same controls as the enira you'll remember that's because the only real difference between the two is who issues it more about what's been going on in Nigeria in the description moving on now another other two countries that have made significant cbdc developments are the UAE and Saudi Arabia the UAE completed its first transfer on embridge the bricks aforementioned payment system in January embridge then launched in June with Saudi Arabia
signing on as another partner to the project this makes us wonder whether turkey will be the next to join embridge to bring you up to speed turkey has applied to join the brics alliance turkey has also been working on its digital ly cbdc to try and keep a lid on inflation if inflation continues falling though turkey could focus on its wholesale implementation further south Israel is reportedly looking to roll out an interest bearing retail cbdc this is interesting pun intended because many central banks have opted not to allow retail cbdcs to earn interest this is
simply because it could risk sucking money out of the rest of the financial system causing instability the caveat is that these central banks are in countries with lots of debt which makes the financial system vulnerable in Israel's case its debt to GDP ratio is just 60% which likely makes its Financial system much more robust however it seems Israel won't launch its retail cbdc even when it's ready according to a recent Reuters report Israel is waiting for another Western Nation to roll out its cbdc before the roll out of its own digital shekele it's not in
entirely clear why but it is fascinating what is clear though is that Israel believes the ECB will be the first Western Central Bank to roll out a cbdc yikes oddly enough it seems that Iran is in the same boat as it recently completed a pilot for its upcoming digital real there's no question that Iran is also looking to circumvent us sanctions with its cbdc all we're wondering is what the country will do once it's succeeded anyhow we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the zig Zimbabwe's gold-backed digital currency funnny enough the zig was turned into
a physical currency back in April by June there were entire black markets of illegal Forex Trading with the zig well at least it's held its value and even gained against the USD now next door to Africa and the Middle East we have Asia and Oceana whose cbdc developments could easily justify a separate video the big one here is of course China which has been aggressive ly rolling out its digital yuan cbdc in December it completed a crossborder gold trade using this cbdc and if you think that's crazy consider that Kazakhstan paid for a rail link
to China using its own cbdc not China's cbdc kazakhstan's cbdc the digital Tanger for those unaware lots of smaller countries are focused on cbdcs as they're essentially the only way they can protect their National currency but back to China another crazy ecny development happened last November and that was the news that British Bank Standard Chartered will participate in China's cbdc trials to refresh your memory French Bank BNP paribar joined China's cbdc trials last year foreshadowing geopolitical changes in other words Europe possibly breaking ranks with the US and aligning more with the bricks but probably not
anytime soon speaking of which China's cbdc roll out gives us a sense of what it's going to be like in the EU once the ECB rolls out its digital Euro as with all totalitarian revolutions the first people to be affected will be those who supported the initiative China is reportedly investigating the creator of its digital Yuan as of April the next people to be affected will be us plebs who will refuse to use the cbdc even when forced to adopt it Chinese workers being paid in digital Yuan are exchanging it for actual money as quickly
as they can a similar thing happened with digital currencies in Scandinavia at the start of the pandemic the more you know now the final group of people to be affected by a cbdc rollout will be criminals who will be allowed to operate so long as they part of whichever Elite is in power Chinese courts recently sentenced a gang for money laundering using digital Yuan you're kidding yourself if you think they're the only ones now another Asian country that needs to be mentioned here is India which has been even more aggressive with the roll out of
its cbdc than China has whereas Chinese citizens have been hesitant to adopt the digital Yuan it seems that Indian citizens are relatively comfortable with the digital rupe that's because over 5 million Indians are using the digital rupee thanks to multiple Pilots spanning back to 2022 not surprisingly the Indian Central Bank has recently been turning its focus to crossborder cbdc Solutions as well as offline cbdc payments which are needed given India's large rural population what is surprising though is that crypto exchange bybit added support for India's digital rupee in July besides the fact that India is
hostile to crypto and crypto itself is inherently opposed to cbdcs this is surprising because it suggest that there's enough digital rupee adoption to add it as a payment option say did you know that the coin Bureau deals page has trading fee discounts of up to 70% and sign up bonuses of up to $100,000 on the best crypto exchanges if you didn't check it out now these deals are only available to our viewers and they won't be around for long link is in the description now this leaves two major regions and that's the UK and the
EU both of whom have been pressing ahead with their cbdc plans despite opposition from the general population let's start with the EU where the east CB claims that the digital Euro will have better privacy than the digital currencies currently issued by commercial Banks as if that mattered to anyone ironically enough the commercial banks in question raised multiple objections to the digital Euro just a few days later coincidentally a similar scuffle was happening in the UK where over 50,000 people provided feedback to the bank of England about its digital pound plans can you guess what the
number one complaint was that's right privacy fortunately a digital pound requires approval by UK politicians this could be why the bank of England has turned its focus to Wholesale cbdcs in recent months chances are that it's got word of the digital Yuan experiments being run by commercial Banks and chances are that the Boe isn't enthralled by the prospect of British Banks adopting a foreign cbdc by contrast the ECB doesn't seem to care that's because in June French Bank bank to France partnered with Hong Kong's monetary authority to work on cbdcs FYI Hong Kong is effectively
part of China on the flip side the German Central Bank is working on cbdcs with MIT the famous US University all this underscores the possibility that we're going to see some significant geopolitical changes in the coming years but it's possible these divisions were always there it looks like there's a tug of war between governments and central banks who want cbdcs and asset managers and Commercial Banks who want stable coins this brings me to the big question and that's what you can do about the rollout of cbdcs around the world now to put things into perspective
94% of central banks are working on a cbdc of some kind and you'll recall that central banks will probably roll out both kinds regardless of which one they start with the bigger problem however is that asset managers and Commercial banks are simultaneously rolling out stable coins too what this means is that it looks like we're guaranteed to get some kind of dystopian digital currency system it's just a question of who will be in control governments or corporations it looks like the answer is going to be a mix of both that's because some countries such as
Indonesia have been explicit about their intentions of using cbdcs as a tool to combat stable coins and crypto more generally other countries such as Switzerland seem to be comfortable with stable coins the bigger question however is how much control these governments and corporations plan on implementing and how we can navigate this complex digital currency landscape in theory cbdcs could be superior to stable coins for preserving freedom in practice however this depends on the governance if a cbdc controls are determined by Democratic vote via a democratic government then this would be a double-edged sword on one
hand most people would probably elect a government that minimizes cbdc controls on the other hand though they would probably vote for the one that prints the most believe it or not but this is a concern that the bank for international settlements or bis has raised in some of its cbdc reports to bring you up to speed the bis is the bank for central banks and the bis believes that most people would vote to print cbdcs to give to themselves if allowed to and it's probably right conversely if a stable coins controls are determined primarily by
private institutions then they will do whatever is required to maximize adoption and value in theory this would result in minimal controls in practice though controls could be imposed to protect the solvency of the stable coin issuer itself in case you forgot stable coins are backed by government debt this means that when you buy a stable coin government debt is bought behind the scenes and vice versa if confidence in the stable coin collapses then it would result in lots of government debt sales and lots of volatility in turn this could risk crashing the financial system because
government debt is often used as the collateral for large loans particularly US Government debt come to think of it it's possible that the next financial crisis will be caused by a stable coin issuer going under because of some external shock and it's possible that this external shock could be due to the exponential po Al Rising government debts especially in the US if this trend continues Bond investors could dump causing bond prices to fall and leading to questions about whether stable coins are fully backed due to the drop in collateral value in turn that would lead
to a run on stable coins increasing bond market volatility further and turning stable coins into the perfect scapegoat that could be used to justify the rollout of cbdcs by governments but that's a topic for another time but although we do happen to have a video about it Link in the description now as to what you can do to push back against cbdcs the most effective measure will be to actively vote against politicians who are in favor of rolling them out though in many cases that may leave you short of options the fact that it's becoming
a major political issue in the US does suggest though that more politicians will come forward to oppose them you can also look for opportunities to submit feedback to central banks themselves as happened in the UK and you can take steps to try and use physical cash more often as phasing it out is a major part of the cbdc rollout process if we don't use it we'll lose it sadly all these measures may not be enough in many cases to prevent cbdcs from being foisted Upon Us in which case the best we can do then is
follow the example of the populations of places like Nigeria and the Bahamas and not use them it's it's very much a last line of defense but it may be the most effective one we have and that is all for today's video if you found it informative smash that like button to let us know and subscribe to the channel and ping that notification Bell to stay informed about cbdcs and digital currencies more broadly be sure to share this video as well if you want to help inform others about this topic with all that said thank you
as always for watching and I'll see you next time this is guy over and out
