Sorry - Your Money Expired
China's digital currency is programmable to include an expiration date. In other words - spend it or lose it. Will other central bank digital currencies include an expiration date? Is this good?
Remember when your grandfather gave you a U.S. savings bond as a child? (If he didn’t, just go with my analogy here.)
Over time, that savings bond drew interest, and depending on how long you held onto the savings bond, the value increased over time.
Americans have always had the right to sock away $100 and not touch it for decades. Because it’s your money, and you can spend it or save it as you please.
Well, this may change in the brave new world.
I stumbled upon a 2021 article in The Economic Times that talks about China’s digital currency - known as the DCEP, or digital yuan. Many news stories these days cover the rise of CBDCs as governments consider adopting the use of a digital currency along with or in place of their physical currency.
What grabbed my attention and didn’t sit right with me is how this article reports that China’s digital currency is programmable to have an expiration date.
China is exploring expiration dates with its upcoming digital yuan, or DCEP, which means the currency will expire if not used in a certain timeframe.
Read more at:
https://bfsi.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/policy/digital-currency-yuan-comes-with-an-expiry-date-spend-or-it-will-vanish/82059471
I’m no economist. But doesn’t this sound highly manipulative?
“The idea was to not only test the technology involved, but boost consumer spending in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In short, China is not only subsidizing the centrally-planned economy by manipulating the supply-side of the question - it now can prop up demand by handing out digital currency to anyone.”
— The Economic Times
This digital currency experiment should be interesting and watched closely.
Because I’m not an expert on currencies or economics, I started to dig deeper to wrap my head around this concept of a digital currency with an expiration date and what that would mean for most of us folks who are not super wealthy elites.
On Amazon, I discovered this book called CBDC: Why is a digital currency with an expiry date a very dangerous solution? Authored by Rafal Ganowski and published in May of 2022, here is an excerpt from the Amazon book description:
A few years ago, if someone told me that we are in danger of introducing digital money with an expiry date, I would probably either treat him as a person who has read futuristic science-fiction horrors or cheap conspiracy theories, or I would simply consider him some kind of crazy. And no wonder, because such dystopian versions of the totalitarian future have so far been the vision of writers such as Orwell or Huxley...
In the last few or maybe a dozen years - and especially since March 2020 - changes in the world have gone so quickly that most of us are not even aware of it. Unfortunately, these are very far-reaching legal changes that limit our civil rights and freedoms in an extremely dangerous way, combined with dangerous changes in the field of finance, and also with the use of very modern technologies.
What do you know about CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency)? Do you really want CBDC to control your spending, your income and your life? In this book, I will explain to you what Central Bank Digital Currency actually is and why it is crucially different from cryptocurrencies. We will look at how CBDC looks in practice and why central banks are so anxious to introduce it. But most importantly, I will explain the concept of digital money with an expiry date and why it is so dangerous to our freedom.
Rafal Ganowski, an author of the book “Cash is freedom. Why is it worth paying cash and preventing cashless society”, is passionate about life and getting most out of it.
He is a successful attorney at law, following a fifteen-year career as a trial lawyer.
Now he is using his huge knowledge to write books about money, cash, finances and law.
He is a supporter of paying with cash, because he believes that elimination of cash means the end of freedom.
Rafal’s books are designed to help all readers to live better life by improving their financial and legal knowledge.
Sometimes provocative, always honest, and with an insight far beyond his years. Rafal isn’t afraid of saying like it is and dealing with controversial subjects. His only aim is to find the best solutions for his readers.
I’ve ordered the book. We will continue to look at the latest news on CBDCs as this topic plays a big role in the WEF agenda.