CFPCs

The label 'CBDC' is deceptive and should be discarded. I suggest a replacement: CFPC. Centralized Fiat Programmable Currency.

This is important because the existing term throws us off the scent.

You're reading this so I'm certain you don't have your head in the sand. You'll be aware that a CBDC, a Central Bank Digital Currency, is something of which one should be wary. You probably know all about it, but it's worth a quick summary. A 'CBDC' is the planned 'upgrade' of our existing fiat currency, although the concreteness of the plan is a matter of guesswork. One thing is certain: If a CBDC did come to everybody's smartphone, in terms of freedom, we would be fucked.

Why is that? What's the new problem? Why can't the issuers of our dollars or pesos or whatever control us now? We've got physical cash, but that's so seldom-used on the scale of things that it's irrelevant. The lack of control lies in the fact that our existing money is dumb money. We already have 'digital currency' but it's just numbers on a database. For all the smart tricks they can add to the base-layer of money, we can, at least in theory, strip those tricks off.

Here we come to the first part of the ruse. By calling it a 'Central Bank Digital Currency', we look away from the key feature: Programmability. Programmability means that your money changes due to the situation, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's 'cunning bastard money'. Think about it. $100 worth of smart money enters your wallet and that cunning bastard won't leave for two months because inflation is rising and the government needs to thwart that.

The Ethereum network is a preview. You can make a token on the Ethereum network and program it to do pretty much anything.

Unless we start calling it 'programmable currency', we're not going to look the problem in the eyes.

There is a more subtle ruse. The 'Central Bank' part of the label makes us watch the banksters too closely. We're open and prone to a 'bait and switch'. Consider this: If Tether (USDT) on the Tron network became our legal currency, would that be any better? Tron is centralized. A few supercomputers control the network. Censorship is easy. If Justin Sun was compromized by the C.I.A., we would be none the wiser, and meanwhile the money would be just as totalitarian. We might be being baited to watch and decry the banksters, but meanwhile the financial tether is being put around our necks, slowly and quietly. (Pun intended). Some even think bitcoin (BTC) is the bait.

Forget the 'bank' part. Focus on the 'central'. Central banks are bogeymen nowadays, and with good reason; but while you pat yourself on the back for not using their stab at a new currency, you could walk into a trap. It's like being lost in a forest and being on the alert for wolves. Nothing wrong with that! Then a bear gets you. You needed to have a wider range of concerns.

I've seen it written that cryptocurrency is some big scam to get us into a CBDC. All that libertarian malarky... Ross Ulbricht and the rest... a psych-op! This is a bad mishmash of technology and culture. These people are looking for surface likenesses. Tether looks a lot like a CBDC, and bitcoin has Wall Street investors and a blockchain, so it kind-of looks like a step towards a CBDC. People will just keep making false positives and false negatives until it's too late. Here's where my new label helps:

In summary, it matters not whence the new governmental money comes. It matters not whether it's blockchain-based or lodged on a big IBM mainframe one kilometer underground. Don't get fixated on facades. Ask yourself: Is it non-programmable, decentralized, and voluntary? Labels matter. I suggest that we use the term 'CFPC'. A Central Bank Digital Currency might fail, and we might all rhapsodize the win, but end up with a Centralized Fiat Programmable Currency, and live in the worst kind of totalitarian hell.