Banks may be a surprising ally for Bitcoin owners hoping to avoid Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Banks may limit the impact of the CBDC “horror story,” according to Arthur Hayes, the former CEO of the cryptocurrency derivatives platform BitMEX, in his most recent blog entry titled “Pure Evil.”
As they imply complete governmental control over everyone’s money and purchasing power, supporters of financial sovereignty naturally fear and even despise them. Hayes called them “a full-frontal assault on our ability to have sovereignty over honest transactions between ourselves.”
Bitcoin holders are among the major opponents of CBDCs
But Bitcoin holders aren’t the only ones who oppose CBDCs. The commercial banks that they sought to remove from power with Bitcoin are likely to join the cause.
The blog post stated, “I believe that the majority’s apathy will allow governments to easily take away our hard currency and replace it with CBDCs, ushering in a utopia (or dystopia) of financial surveillance.
A government could either use commercial banks as nodes in a less drastic overhaul of the financial system or make the central bank the only “node” in the digital network when implementing a CBDC. The “Direct Model” and the “Wholesale Model,” respectively, are the names of these systems that Hayes uses.
The Wholesale Model has been chosen by every nation that has at least reached the “choosing a CBDC model” stage, he reasoned. “It’s clear that no central bank wants to bankrupt their domestic commercial banks.”
As a result, governments may inevitably be kept in check by the type of entities known for restricting crypto exchange transactions and banning hodlers’ accounts, in order to “placate” banks to a certain extent while still achieving benefits like eradicating cash.
Hayes continued, “This is their chance to completely destroy the influence of Too Big to Fail banks — and yet, they seem to remain politically unable to do so. Politicians who care more about power than profits.”
Due to the fact that CBDCs mark a significant change in both money and politics, the topic of CBDCs attracted a lot of attention outside of the cryptocurrency sector.