Alternative media has been discussing the dangers of central bank digital currencies or CBDCs, a currency framework similar to blockchain-based products like Bitcoin but directly controlled by central bankers, for several years. It’s good to see the mainstream finally addressing a threat that some analysts, have been writing about for over a decade. CBDs are Orwellian. In a cashless society, most people would use digital products to trade goods and labor, ending trade privacy. Your purchases, sales, and employment would be recorded, which could limit your freedoms in the future. Say you like steak, but the increasingly authoritarian government labels red meat a health risk and a “climate change risk” due to cows’ carbon emissions. Your purchase history (which they have full access to) shows that eating red meat frequently has caused more carbon pollution than most people.
They demand a retroactive carbon tax on red meat purchases. Your insurance company also sends a letter saying you’re a medical risk and cancels your coverage. Like the CCP authorities in China, the products and services you use can be tracked to create a psychological profile that could affect your social credit score. The tracking algorithm may note that you refuse an annual mRNA booster shot. As an “anti-vax” person, your social credit score plummets, barring you from public places. Your job may be terminated. In the worst case, economic access is the greatest oppressor. Without physical cash and CBDCs, your savings and purchasing power will never be yours. Banks would bottleneck exchange, and governments could freeze transactions. If you openly criticize a government policy on social media and call the system corrupt, they can block your digital money transfers until you submit or die.
CBDCs let establishment officials starve political opponents algorithmically. Technocracy would rule. Central bankers are racing to develop and introduce digital currencies. They have these systems ready for implementation. This July, the Federal Reserve will launch FedNow, an instant transfer program that is not a CBD but a precursor to CBDs. The SWIFT network transfers funds for over 10,000 financial institutions in 212 countries, giving its shareholders enormous power. After the Ukraine-Russia war began, Russia was expelled from SWIFT to crash its economy. Due to trade with China and India, Russia has avoided SWIFT, but its financial structure has suffered. However, what if all monetary transactions were centralized through CBDCs and the BIS controlled the global retail CBDC exchange hub? Icebreaker is. Imagine you run a business that pays Vietnamese or Taiwanese manufacturers to make your products.
CBDCs will require a system like the Icebreaker Hub to move digital money to Vietnamese banks and your manufacturers’ accounts. Say BIS officials dislike you and impose Russian-style sanctions barring your access to the hub. Business is over.
What if the BIS set standards for hub use? What if the BIS requires your company to meet certain ESG categories before Icebreaker transactions? The BIS can now manipulate social and cultural trends using your business and millions of others as forced messengers. This may not seem significant to the average consumer who buys domestically. For business, a SWIFT-like hub for retail CBDCs could dominate international trade. Running a large company or organization requires BIS compliance. It worsens… The Icebreaker Hub uses “bridge currency” to fill exchange rate and liquidity gaps in its “spoke and wheel” exchange method. Avoiding bank cross-currency shortages seems to speed up transactions. However, this “bridging” sets CBDCs on a long-term path.
Say a global economic crisis causes many currencies to fluctuate wildly. If the US dollar loses its world reserve and petrostatus, FX markets will panic. Price inflation and liquidity pressures cripple banks. Central bankers propose CBDCs as a solution and the BIS Icebreaker Hub as an international trade intermediary. The economic crash scares people into adopting digital technology. Let’s say the BIS still can’t find a stable currency for most global transactions. Then what? Luckily for us, the BIS and IMF are developing a global CBDC market. The IMF would use the Special Drawing Rights basket system to create a global currency.
The BIS then bridges the gap with this one world currency product. The BIS, IMF, and other central banks will eventually ask, “Why are we bothering with these national currency exchanges when we have a perfectly good bridge currency in the form of this one-world CBDC?” Why not eliminate all these superfluous national currencies and have one currency for everyone?” Global financial centralization would result. Why have nations if you have a one-world currency, a centralized and micromanaged global economy, and the world’s most important trade systems controlled by a few faceless, unelected bureaucracies? Global government is the last step. Icebreaker shows the nightmare. They’re harmless, but they’re economic tyranny’s DNA.