Firo co-founder Reuben Yap has warned that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will be used by central banks to control how people spend their money.
He remarked that CBDCs give central banks "a lot of fine-grained control of how you should be spending your money." Yap continued: "To me, your money is your business. You should be free to spend your money as how you like it. It's your choice."
"Your independence is a very key part of who we are. It's not for the state to tell us how we spend our money."
According to the Malaysian co-founder of the privacy coin, CBDCs run contrary to how free market economies work. He also pointed out the potential for abuse, especially when people are only allowed to spend their money in recognized department stores, among others.
Yap also noted how CBDCs can be used as a weapon against any political opposition. With governments having control of it, a CBDC can effectively cut off people's access to their funds to control dissent. This is the reason why there is an uptick in interest over privacy coins, even though many exchanges and government agencies are trying to ban them.
Several countries already implementing CBDCs
CBDCs are no longer in the planning stage, Yap continued, as several countries have already implemented it. China has long used CBDCs, tying it with the social credit score. Over in Africa, Nigeria has adopted its own version called the eNaira.
The U.S. and the European Union are also mulling the use of CBDCs, in the form of the digital dollar and digital euro. "There is a clear trend that we are going to see more of this," Yap said. (Related: RIGGED: Brazil’s CBDC pilot program allows government to freeze funds, adjust balances at will.)
While a CBDC may seem to be a convenience especially when issuing relief funds, it could also be used to restrict or limit what people can buy. The CBDC essentially takes power away from banks and gives it to a central bank controlling the use of fiat money, which is the only legal tender in a country.
The Firo co-founder noted that privacy coins are one of the things that can answer or counter a CBDC, and that a privacy coin is the exact opposite of what a CBDC is.
He said: "There is a sort of decentralized nature to [privacy coins] even though they, like fiat money, [are] centralized. But the CBDC takes that to the next level because CBDCs are like blockchain currencies … and they are programmable."
Yap stressed that privacy coins such as Firo are not like a transparent ledger or blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum that can freeze a particular address or blacklist certain funds which he said is already happening now. Privacy coins are indistinguishable and people can see where they are going and see how much someone is holding, he added.
"Obviously, governments are saying 'Don't worry, a CBDC will be privacy-preserving. This is the utmost priority.' But if that's the case, if they are so much about privacy, why are they putting in regulations to ban privacy coins?"
"If CBDCs are private, why are they banning privacy coins? It's because they enable money laundering."
Yap ultimately urged people to not give the state apparatus more infrastructure to control their lives. He reiterated that people are already being monitored by companies and that they are being controlled to a certain extent.
"So money, or at least cash or privacy coins, are one of those last frontiers. We should not be giving in or empowering the state apparatus to have more control over our lives if we want to be free citizens," he said.
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Watch Reuben Yap explaining why people should be concerned about the CBDC below.
This video is from the Firo channel on Brighteon.com.
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