Governor of Florida Calls For Ban on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

• The governor has publicly called for a prohibition of CBDCs inside the state.
• DeSantis compared a prospective CBDC to the digital yuan of China.

Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, is the latest Republican leader to speak out firmly against the use of CBDCs in the United States. The governor has publicly called for a prohibition on CBDCs inside the state, denouncing them as instruments of financial surveillance.

DeSantis, in a speech posted on Twitter on Monday, referenced President Biden’s March 2022 digital asset executive order, which directed federal agencies to look at establishing a CBDC. The governor has said that CBDCs are “different” from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin since they provide the government a “direct view” of overall customer activity.

Facilitates Government Monitoring

Bitcoin and other crypto networks maintain anonymity despite the fact that their transactions are publicly available thanks to the blockchain. Access to the network is completely anonymous and unrestricted to anybody around the globe.

Although Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has said that a prospective CBDC would be the opposite of anonymous, he has also stated that all network users would be recognized and verified.

To be sure, DeSantis compared a prospective CBDC to the digital yuan of China, where the People’s Bank of China monitors consumer spending and may “cut off access to goods and services.” He also used Nigeria as an example of a country where the government’s attempt to promote the use of its eNaira currency by restricting access to ATMs led to unrest a month ago.

Republican congressman Tom Emmer presented a bill last month to prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a CBDC to customers, citing similar issues relating to monitoring, so DeSantis isn’t the only one to speak out against CBDCs. In March of 2022, Senator Ted Cruz proposed a measure to prevent the government from centralizing and controlling cryptocurrencies.