Oddbean new post about login | logout I have a question that's been percolating for a bit and figured I'd ask the nostr hive-mind: Once CBDCs are rolled out and cash is eliminated, how will crooked politicians and bad government actors (like the CIA) launder money? The only way I can figure this out is that the ledger used for the CBDC is not going to be made public, so they can do WTF they want to with the CBDC, but the volatility of the CBDC does not lend itself well to criminal or off the table endeavors, since it can be destroyed at will and no one would be able to trust it, not even the goons in the government. So, assuming that there will always be a way for the gubment goons to do shady stuff, how are they going to transact? Is that why there is a move to capture BTC by by regulation? (I think that's why the ETFs got approved.) Will they leave a way to back door something else in the total capture system? This one point has got me confused and I'd like to know what others think about this. #asknostr #cbdc #freedom #freedomtech #liberty #financialsovreignty #hardmoney
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That's not applicable to a cashless CBDC system. Unless, somehow, it is made to be so, which I cannot see with what I've learned about how CBDCs are to be implemented.
I think the elite will be transacting on their own ledger
But then how do they cross over onto the normal market?
the easiest way would be to have a separate ledger. a black ledger.
Right. That does make sense. But how would that get implemented in a way that it can be used on the white ledger without exposing the source being block ledger "coin?" I'm guessing that, if they use a black ledger, they will want a method to print infinite black coins that can be used on the white coin ledger. But that would have to be evident somehow in the code for the black coins. There's only so much they can hide if they need to interoperate.
You know what, I’m not sure they can pull this off.
Well, yes. They aren't as competent as they think they are, and it's a pretty rickety system to start. But... They are gonna try really hard.
easy, theyll just change the monetary policy of the chain. ethereum has done it many times.
That doesn't answer my questions, though. CBDCs, by design, are programmable fiat. It can be changed down to the smallest division for any reason. Say the wrong thing? Your balance gets burned. Want to buy beef to stay carnivore? You won't be allowed to. Want to leave your 15 minute city? You can't spend your CBDC in another town/city/whatever.
The top tier will make it legal when they do it. The lower and middle ranks will do exactly what we'll be doing.
But... How? How will the CIA use CBDCs to traffic drugs and humans? How will they pay off others to do dirty work? How could you bribe a senator or banker?
Qualified immunity. They will use monero, gold, cocaine and hookers, that they either seized or bought with commodities
CIA stands for Crack In Abundance
I suppose gold could be used again, but that will just drive gold demand up, which wouldn't be too terrible, except in sure they will limit the CBDC to hard money ramps, if not outright eliminate them for anyone else.
Yup. But many commodities can serve as money, albeit inefficiently. Rum in Colonial Australia. Tide laundry detergent among 1980s Food Stamps recipients in California.
Yes. But that's not as efficient as a fat stack of $100 bills. I just am concerned that I'm missing something simple and effective.
If you think of it, let us know! That's usually considered cryptocurrencies' UVP, especially after crackdowns on cash and precious metals.
The CBDC will not be open source, as you say. Just like all the dark money in CIA accounts now, they'll be able to hoover it all in and control it with no outside scrutiny. They'll have financial anonymity, something they desperately don't want us to have.
Yes... But... If you give some wetwork dude a cool milly in hundos, that can be spent (for now). If that wetwork dude accepts a bunch of the CBDC and then gets rugged, you're gonna have him come after you. Imagine that in an industrial crime scale. How is that gonna work? I just don't see how they are gonna be able to do their dirty work with the systems that are being proposed.
Yeah that's a great point. I don't know, but they'll find a way, they wouldn't not build themselves a way to get around the restrictions they put on us.
That's the kind of thing I want people to start working out, because if THEY can do it, then it might be possible to hijack that method for ourselves. Not that I want to use extra-bad fiat, but... If that's how you gotta get food and clothes... You gotta do what you gotta do.
This is a valuable line of thinking 🤔
Yes. I don't have answers all the time, but I'm pretty good at picking out better lines of inquiries that get to a more useful point.
you KNOW their system is going to have major problems.
Building our own systems outside of theirs will be more beneficial, although knowing how to use theirs for our own good will be valuable. We use CBDC's and/or UBI for the bills and daily needs and we keep our wealth in other things, BTC, skills, tools and use that in our own systems built outside of theirs.
Yup. That's why I'm trying to figure this out now. I'm ready behind done of you, but still ahead of most.
If you're thinking about it you're ahead of most.
They're not building a way. They're monitoring us carefully as WE build them a way.
How so?
Bitcoin circular economy. And Monero. We build, they steal at gunpoint. As long as BTC V4V remains a small % of the economy, they can win in both games.
Thats why i expect official sabotage and interference, but not a 100% ban a la China's war on Tor.
The spooks intend to farm us, even if the bankers and planners would prefer us dead.
I've forgotten where I read it but I read an ominous article suggesting that CBDCs and a UBI should be linked to your location and different in each 15 minute city. If that's how things play out you would still need a national CBDC so that cities can transact with each other. Your CBDC will be locational bound but they pay themselves in the national one which can buy and sell local ones all over the country 🤔
That much is obvious. Your social credit score will be tied to your UBI. Bad score = low to no UBI, denial of all services, possible detainment for re-education, etc. Which is why it's better to GTFO off cities while you can.
But there you have a two book system. One is monitored and the other not.
That's how they're doing it with the refugee debit cards, now. They load them up with "free money", but you can't use it to withdraw cash and you have to spend it at a local store. Doesn't work further away.
Almost certain there'd be Aussies jumping up and down about human rights if we treated our refugees like that...
Oh, they do that here, too, but the won't care about the same system being applied to local welfare recipients and such.
I think for a while we had a welfare program for the Aboriginal peoples in some areas that limited what the could buy with their welfare monies but it's been repealed if I recall.... Although I think they could buy whatever they wanted just not alcohol and cigarettes....
The cards were sharply criticised at the time for only being accepted at major chains. That often cost more and were less accessible for people without their own transport. I think we can safely assume the exact same will occur with CBDCs...
They will do what they have always done use untraceable drug money
How? That's what I want to know. How do you do drug deals with "money" that's intentionally burnable?
Well most of them wash it though so form of legitimate business activity… Have you ever looked into how high value art is sold, moved & stored when it’s not being displayed?
Yes. That's normal money laundering, but, that's less available when everything is digital and controlled to the point that all your digital assets are quite literally being held hostage. With cash you can't have it remotely burned. If you wanted to take back "money" you have to do it physically. Not so with CBDCs.
One must ask what is the cbdc? Could we already be using it? And is there already an untraceable drug money already available?
The first question is very well answered by all the central banks. No. We are not. Not yet, at least not in the US. Yeah, $100 bills. Plus BTC and monero to some extent.
Bitcoin is to trackable to be trusted in my opinion for privacy unless you really know wtf your doing at this time. Cash, monero, some shiny metal rock & gemstones.
Very curious question about whether one exists now. This is now, to me, obviously yes.
IIRC, a very few countries have implemented a CBDC already.
Not even talking about a CBDC. Just a backend washing currency between large banks as a service. I’m sure that different countries have used crypto or bitcoin for this. But I’d guess they have something available to them now only they can use. Like @kidwarp said, just untraceable. No need for the pleb money mixers… although it’s probably still cheaper.
The dollar has been a cbdc since the early 90's. There is no benefit to the banks or the government to make the ledger public, and nobody wants their banking life to be public to their neighbor, aunt, or corporate competition. No the CBDC will not be a public ledger. The CIA, FBI and every other government agency already havs full visibility to our financial life, whether its publiclly known or not. The CBDC is a psyop, one to make us fear the government and their power over us. They only have it if we give it to them by buying into the idea they even have the capacity to enact the controls we fear. Its also "thinking past the sale" to think the CBDC will give them a new power they already have but don't want us to be aware of.
*sighs* No. It has not been what is currently being called a CBDC. The legacy accounting system can't even keep track of what dollars go where, which, is a feature, not a bug, IMO. It is not thinking past the sale to read the white papers for the design of them. It's not thinking past the sale to see what's already being done in China. My original question still stands.
They already do most of the shady stuff in the "open", through normal bank accounts, just like the Mafia does. It looks like normal transactions.
Eh. That kind of shady stuff isn't what I'm referring to. That's always been done in the in between. I'm talking about outright evil stuff.
yes, that stuff too... the payments for the unregistered children and babies, yes, that goes through normal banks too they only ever use money laundering laws against political enemies and those who are calling out their corrupt system for what it is
This, but they also prey on small fish who look like becoming medium fish without becoming confidential informants first
yup, it's classic mafia government with a better PR branch than so-called "corrupt" governments you can ask anyone in any country in eastern europe about what happens to successful businesses.... they either sell out to the oligarchs or they are eliminated by first soft then hard measures
I've been pondering the whole CBDC distribution issue for years. They're not even remotely sure how they'll accomplish this. Personally, I don't even believe they'll get around to it. And if they do, the world will (more than likely) be in a state of near total anarchy. But I can imagine that, once (or if) they figure out a way to suppress volatility, they'll simply create their own private ledgers for all of their filthy shit, and our account funds will simply be converted into the CBDC almost overnight. That way, most of the major central banks get to stay in business and maintain their global surveillance network, all the while they can simply carry around their funds in their pockets and do whatever they bloody want—not that they don't already. But, like I said, I don't even think that they'll make it to the implementation stage. Who knows? 🤷♂️ There are many ways that this could pan out.
I kinda hope you're correct, but I'm not so sure about that. I think they do know how they want it to work and thy rest is just a software engineering problem. Most people can't handle anarchy and it wouldn't go that far, IMO. A second ledger seems to be the most common thought as to how to do stuff illegally. In not sure how that would work, but I'm sure it could. I would want to figure it out, though, since that means that it would be possible to create your own black ledger. Just a thought... The variety of ways this can go is why it requires careful, substantial thought.
There is something else that I observed which really doesn't get mentioned at all on here. People here seem to be too fixated on their Bitcoin obsession to consider this possibility: cash could make a comeback. There are some cafés, restaurants, and pubs etc. in the city that have signs on their windows that say things like "prefer cash", "cash preferred", or "10% off with cash!". It seems that many local businesses are growing increasingly distrustful of credit card usage. I can't blame them 🤷♂️. I also know plenty of people (myself included) who have withdrawn most of their funds. I agree. Most people can't handle anarchy. It doesn't mean it won't happen. It's happened on plenty of occasions in the past. But, I understand where you're coming from. Citizens of wealthier countries have grown too complacent and comfortable to take any initiative. And government and corporate obedience requires minimal effort. Whatever! Their choices and consequences are their own. You're right. You probably would be able to make your own private ledger. Unless they begin to implement new laws and regulations that will prohibit the usage of certain software and hardware products. They could easily do that. Again... who knows? My daughter's safe. That's really all I care about. 👍
Would anyone else like to comment? I would like to have as many minds working on this as possible. nostr:nevent1qqstn3cpy7fp7lr8neu0hu4aw855xqlq25047ulmwkp5hl050x2x7sqprfmhxue69uh4g6r9gehhyetnwshxummnw3erztnrdaksygqx3804s3ag6vmk3yk6993z6lq0ms00r9v0f0zyw8vsje42rm9f7gpsgqqqqqqs0xtkva
If you haven't seen it yet, this is one of the most thought provoking conversations currently happening on nostr. nostr:nevent1qqstn3cpy7fp7lr8neu0hu4aw855xqlq25047ulmwkp5hl050x2x7sqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfdupzqp5fmavy02xnxa5f9k3fvgkhcr7urmcetr6tc3r3myykd2s7e20jqvzqqqqqqy86km77
Theoretically, anyone who receives government income is a welfare recipient and that's almost everyone, even if it's just a negative income tax.