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(Kitco News) - Florida Governor and Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has doubled down in his fight against a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the U.S., saying that he would put an end to the creation of a digital dollar on his first day in office if he gets elected.
DeSantis made the comments during an interview with popular news personality Tucker Carlson at the Family Leadership Summit on Friday. “If I’m the President, on day one, we will nix central bank digital currency,” he said. “Done, dead, not happening in this country.”
The Florida governor first spoke out about the creation of a digital dollar in March, calling for a ban on its creation at the federal level and introducing a proposal to the Florida legislature that would limit the use of the CBDC in the sunshine state.
He eventually went on to sign the anti-CBDC bill into law in May, which banned the use of a digital dollar or any CBDC issued by a foreign government in Florida. Later that month, DeSantis officially launched his presidential campaign and made protecting crypto and opposing a digital dollar a focal point of his pitch to attract voters.
“The current regime, clearly, has it out for Bitcoin,” he said. “And if it continues for another four years, they’ll probably end up killing it. The only reason these people in Washington don’t like [Bitcoin] is because they don’t control it. They’re central planners and they want to have control over society and so Bitcoin represents a threat to them.”
He also stated his opposition to a digital dollar at that time and said he would “insist on Congressional authorization before a CBDC could ever be implemented.”
DeSantis reiterated this stance on Friday, telling Carlson that recent comments suggesting the Federal Reserve may try to create a CBDC without Congressional approval is not how the process works.
“The Fed said, ‘Well, we wouldn’t do it without consulting the legislative and executive branches, ideally we would get a law passed,’” DeSantis noted. “No, that’s not [what] the constitution says, [that] it's only ideal that you get a law passed – you would have to get a law passed.”
“I don’t think Congress would pass that, so I think the Fed may try to do something unilaterally,” he warned. “So what we did in Florida is we basically passed a law that says ‘We do not recognize CBDCs in the state of Florida.’ And I think other states are probably going to follow suit. That will jam their ability to do it through executive action. They don’t have the authority to do it, and it would lead to lawsuits.”
He also noted that CBDCs are attractive to governments and international bodies like the IMF due to the increased level of control they give over the day-to-day purchases of citizens.
“They want to get rid of cash, they want no cryptocurrency, and they want this to be the sole form of legal tender,” he said. “And they have said this publicly at Davos and other places. It will allow them to prohibit ‘undesirable purchases’ like fuel and ammunition, and so the minute you give them the power to do this, they are going to impose a social credit system on this country. CBDC is a massive threat to American liberty.”
“On January 20, 2025, it goes to the ash heap of history in this country,” he concluded.
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| Americans oppose a digital dollar while Canadians are open to a CBDC |
According to the most recent survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), 93% of central banks are currently at some stage in the exploration and development of a CBDC, and the world could see 24 CBDCs in circulation by 2030.
The latest update from the Federal Reserve said the central bank has made no decision on issuing a digital dollar “and would only proceed with the issuance of a CBDC with an authorizing law.” When Fed Chair Jerome Powell testified before the House Financial Services Committee in March 2023, he said a central bank digital currency is “something we would certainly need Congressional approval for.”
While no decision has been made, the Fed is actively exploring the creation of a digital dollar and has conducted several pilot projects to test different features.
This includes the November launch of a proof-of-concept (PoC) pilot project designed to “explore the feasibility of an interoperable network of central bank wholesale digital money and commercial bank digital money operating on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger.” The project specifically looked at the feasibility of the Regulated Liability Network (RLN), which is envisioned as an interoperable network for wholesale payments operating on a shared multi-entity distributed ledger.
The PoC ultimately determined that “shared ledger technology [is] a potential solution to support payment innovation.”
The New York Fed also launched Phase II of Project Cedar in November, which was a study designed to explore the feasibility of a wCBDC for cross-border settlements between international banks using different national currencies. The results of Phase II of Project Cedar were released on May 18.
