Central Bank Digital Currencies - Pilot Program by BIS

Shocked this isn't bigger news: I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts with Grant Williams (financial commentator), and he mentioned "mCBDC infrastructure". For those not aware, CBDCs are Central Bank Digital Currencies.

Quick summary - the BIS is the "Central Bankers' Central Bank". The BIS "Innovation Hub" oversaw this program in which 4 countries(/special administrative regions, in the case of Hong Kong) used their own domestic CBDCs for cross-border payments - these countries were UAE, Thailand, China, and Hong Kong SAR.

Anyway, I was quite surprised that I haven't heard anything about this pilot program, as it demonstrates how quickly the world powers could in fact move us over to CBDCs, since infrastructure is already in place for many of these countries. This would have enormous implications for the US Dollar, the current financial system and essentially every person on the planet who uses major currencies.

Here are 2 excerpts from the BIS paper on their mBridge/mCBDC program:

Multiple CBDC (multi-CBDC) arrangements that directly connect jurisdictional digital currencies in a single common technical infrastructure offer significant potential to improve the current system and allow cross-border payments to be immediate, cheap and universally accessible with secure settlement.

The BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of Thailand, the Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates are working together to build such a multi-CBDC platform, known as mBridge.

mCBDC Paper by Bank for International Settlements

4-minute video describing the pilot program:

My personal theory is that when the next "black swan" or catastrophic type of event threatens the stability of the current financial system, TPTB will need to quickly implement CBDCs to "batten down the hatches" and prevent the entire debt-based system from imploding completely (but even this will not solve the true issues of the credit-based fiat monetary system and sovereign debt crises).

Remember I mention phones will be made with solar panel on them in the future. There's a reason for that. Stay tune.
We already have a solar panel for phones for 10 bucks here in Japan. Just wait till they figure out how to lower the weight to get it on the phone. Remember the bulky mobile phone back in the 70's the rich had in their cars. Look how far advance now. Our watches are a telephone.

a reply to: FamCore

The devil is in the details. Unlike cryptocurrencies which have a fixed limit as to how many can be coined, CBDCs have no limit. Similar to interest rates, central banks will determine how much digital currency will be made available for transactions. In other words, central banks will control the price of money. CBDCs may also have an expiration date to be determined by central bankers. Participants will be forced into transactions just to use their CBDCs. There will be retail and wholesale CBDCs totally controlled by central bankers.

In the end, it creates a system where all money is controlled by a small group of "central bankers" and they are usually behind the curtain - you never know who's running the show. Cash in hand will not be allowed. Cyber security for CBDCs will be a nightmare. Gold and other hard, tangible assets will be eaten up and become the underground currency of choice.

The downside is much bigger than the upside. You won't read much about that though.............

originally posted by: Phantom423
a reply to: FamCore

The devil is in the details. Unlike cryptocurrencies which have a fixed limit as to how many can be coined, CBDCs have no limit. Similar to interest rates, central banks will determine how much digital currency will be made available for transactions. In other words, central banks will control the price of money. CBDCs may also have an expiration date to be determined by central bankers. Participants will be forced into transactions just to use their CBDCs. There will be retail and wholesale CBDCs totally controlled by central bankers.

In the end, it creates a system where all money is controlled by a small group of "central bankers" and they are usually behind the curtain - you never know who's running the show. Cash in hand will not be allowed. Cyber security for CBDCs will be a nightmare. Gold and other hard, tangible assets will be eaten up and become the underground currency of choice.

The downside is much bigger than the upside. You won't read much about that though.............

The problem for the central banksters is that they cant run it all by themselves as they dont have the infrastructure. They still need the big banks as intermediaries...for now anyways.

It looks like a bit of a power struggle. How many backdoors are these crypto cbdc's gonna have? How will the big banks run their criminal empires with the central banks running the show?

I think the more centralized cryptocurrencies are experimented with, the more people will realize the value of decentralized cryptocurrencies.

Maybe that's part of the reason why the value of decentralized currencies is currently on the rise.

Well the banks have already started to limit transfers into crypto exchanges.
4 out of 5 banks I use here in the UK will not let you pay fiat into the exchanges I use.

originally posted by: UKWO1Phot
Well the banks have already started to limit transfers into crypto exchanges.
4 out of 5 banks I use here in the UK will not let you pay fiat into the exchanges I use.

That's rare in the US, but I have whiched banks in the past because of that.

Back in the day, I would mail checks or money orders directly to the exchanges.

There also used to be peer to peer sites that would facilitate crypto transactions between two private parties.

Where there a will there's a way.