Practically, I agree with you but the definition of a Central Bank Digital Currency is a currency issued by the country’s treasury. Maybe they come up with some hybrid scheme where the Fed will credit Circle’s accounts and then they print more USDC, but that would for sure require legislation and be an immense responsibility given to a private company.

DAI/USDS are what you’re looking for in a permission-less stablecoin, but unfortunately the founder has back peddled to chase making money over principles. I believe folks have been turning towards a project called https://www.liquity.org/ but its no where the size and pedigree that MakerDAO was.

In my experience, the bigger issue is folks just completely ignore OPSEC once they get on signal.

The centralized component is pretty concerning. Imagine if protests like in Iran earlier this year were to occur in the States. The Feds would immediately seize or DDOS those servers during nationwide unrest, before cutting the internet which is basically an inside out panopticon.

EOD it depends on your threat model. You’re probably not on Signal if your life depends on it anyway.

Plus, its always useful to not have my texts immediately read and sent to advertisers.

You dont have to give it your cell number.

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/signal-tutorial-second-phone-number/

https://theintercept.com/2024/07/16/signal-app-privacy-phone-number/

My bad, I think I misread your comment, but yeah for the end-user it would be basically like what we have now already with digitized USD, perhaps more useful, since payment processors could allow you to send it on a blockchain and pay with VISA. The way I’m viewing CBDC’s is a hopefully more robust upgrade on SWIFT.

Biggest difference is it would be a currency actually printed by the treasury on a blockchain instead of backed by dollars held by a mysterious company based in the carribean (Tether) or an American FinTech company (USDC), or algorithmically pegged by the native blockchain token (USDS/DAI). If public, it would mean money printing would be a lot more transparent, but I seriously doubt a CBDC would be on a public blockchain. It might be easier/faster for banks to do REPO loans and crediting accounts in emergencies. Theoretically, it makes UBI feasible too.

To be honest, I’m far more interested in what a BRICS CBDC would look like. The Unit would end the petrodollar.

Yeah but then you have to transactions on the L2. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

I know this isn’t the case for RAILGUN on Ethereum, but I’m curious to what the bitcoiners are up to.

You’re already giving up your privacy by having a banking account. There’s already no privacy if you’re using paypal, cashapp, zelle, etc or any tap-to-pay. You have to go really out of your way to avoid KYC in 2026.

I meant payment processors like zelle or paypal, or banking apps. Obviously you can just use crypto. That’s not going away.

I don’t know because no major central gov has made one. Stablecoins arent CBDCs.

I know the OP asked the hypothetical, but CBDC’s don’t have to replace cash altogether. Also, a CBDC account can be tied to a card. It doesn’t necessarily have to be solely internet-based in principle either.

To your points about internet connectivity: I get it, but most people and merchants are using credit card terminals or tap-to-pay at this point anyway. Even in these rare scenarios where the merchant lost connectivity, you could still send the money over to the person on your battery powered phone with a digital transfer.

My point is that you as an end-user won’t notice much change if the federal government were to transfer their treasury systems to a national blockchain instead of centralized servers and payments via VISA. The issue is in the implementation, and I’m almost certain they will fuck it up and/or have some shady company (re)build it.

Bubba, any intermediary is going to instantly comply with the government laws. They can already allow/disallow any transaction, freeze your account etc. Shit the banks and payment companies we use are likely way more compliant and strict than if it was directly operated by the government because the government is being defunded and breaking down.

Monero XMR is the last bastion of “anonymous” transactions. The issue is actually obtaining it privately.

They’re going to tax/fine you however they want. This is already reality. Its no different from having a bank account or making transfers via Paypal or Zelle. Our currency is already heavily digitized and centralized by governments. Transitioning to CBDCs would just be making the back-end more robust, which I’m personally in favor for. The technology for this has been worked on for about a decade now.

This is way less of an issue then your making it out to be. In 2026, when is your phone running out of battery or losing wifi?

You can also just get a crypto card if your worried about your phone being unreliable. Its still permissioned, but you’re not buying shit on the street with direct crypto transfers anyway (at-least in the West, outside of crypto enthusiast merchants/restaurants).