Popular macro expert Lyn Alden says they are “generally not positive” on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) amid an increasing adoption of centralized digital currencies.
In a new interview on the David Lin report, Alden says that CBDCs give authorities “extraordinary control” over the end users.
“Obviously the downside [of CBDCs] is that you centralize everyone’s usage of the public ledger.
That gives the government extraordinary control. They can surveil everything, they can freeze funds more easily. They can make it more programmable so they can say you know interest rates vary based on your age or based on other activity.
I think countries like China show some of the scarier scenarios for how that can turn out. Where they can link like a social credit score for example to your money and just basically try to control society at a much finer degree than we’ve normally been used to.
I think we’ve had a multi-decade trend towards greater and greater financial surveillance and control, and Central Bank Digital Currencies kind of represent the end-game scenario for that. So I’m generally not positive on CBDCs…”
The popular macro guru says that while she understands why governments are interested in CBDCs, her focus is on their counterweights such as Bitcoin (BTC).
“I can see why in some cases they’re interested in using them. And what I’d rather focus on is building some of these open-source alternatives right.
The counter to CBDCs in many cases is things like Bitcoin that say, ‘Okay, it doesn’t matter what the borders of a country are, it doesn’t matter no one can just like confiscate your Bitcoin if you hold the keys’.”
According to Alden, the choice in the future will be between centralized and decentralized forms of money.
“Those are the two sides of the coin I think people have in their future. They’re either going to get more and more into the centrally administered ledgers.
Or more and more into distributed systems. And away from some of the banking we’ve been kind of used to over the past 100 years.”
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