Natalie Smolenski is an Executive Director of the Texas Bitcoin Foundation and a Fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. In this interview, we discuss the elimination of cash, the importance of Bitcoin to a free society, and the clear and present danger posed by CBDCs.
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Like the fable of a frog being not perceiving danger when slowly boiled, citizens in mature democracies have been surrendering to the steady erosion of their privacy and rights. The issue is that society now stands unknowingly at the edge of a precipice. Governments and compliant businesses are working on a technology that they will sell as providing utility but could herald the end of democracy: CBDCs.
Whilst Bitcoiners are aware of the dangers, it seems as though the rest of society, including decision-makers, are ignorant. Faster, less costly, more convenient payment systems - what’s the problem many will ask. The risks of providing unfettered access to arguably the most critical component of our private data do not resonate with those who have already traded their privacy with social media companies.
But, there is obviously a massive difference between surveillance capitalism and unprecendented government oversight of individuals’ financial data. And further, as Natalie Smolenski alludes to in the whitepaper she has written with Dan Held, “Why the U.S. Should Reject Central Bank Digital Currencies”, adopting CBDCs could be a one-way valve: reversing political will and technology is formidably hard. Once cash has gone, it won’t be coming back.
The battle is not only for democracy, it is for prosperity. The American experiment has shown that bottom up innovation can thrive in a free society. It is hard to imagine the industrial revolution occurring if feudalism was still the dominant form of societal organisation. It was the enlightenment, the development of ideas of freedom, tolerance, fraternity and rights that enabled humans to flourish.
This is perhaps Bitcoiners' most important fight. Education, advocacy and conviction are our weapons. Maintaining our personal sovereignty is the prize.
