SARB Testing Out CBDC

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is making steady progress in its investigations around a central bank digital currency in what sounds to me like a way to keep the welfare state going longer than it should, by being able to milk citizens through preferred tax rates, interest rates and giving central banks and politicians more control over the populous.

Many might not know this but the South African Reserve Bank has previously tested a digital currency for local use as part of its Project Khoka program, which looked at using blockchain technology to speed up payment systems in the country.

The technology is pitched as a proof of concept to help streamline interactions between the prime brokers, meaning the big 5 banks and obviously the central bank. If you're a South African, you'll know how shit it is and costly it is to move a simple R1000 between banks or pulling money from another bank's ATM, they're always looking to nail you, and why?

Your database management shouldn't be my problem.

To me this is a blessing it's been one of the many reasons I moved to bitcoin and why banks can try and try but they will never win me back as a customer, I've tasted freedom money, and a permissionless network, anything else is just shitcoining.

Private blockchains ready to bend you over

From what I can tell of the material they've put out these CBDC's are basically a private fork of Ethereum with the base token removed and instead you're moving around a Zar based stablecoin that is backed by the reserve banks treasury.

So now the reserve bank has oversight over all interbank transfers and lending and have greater control over the capital they allocate to these prime brokers as well as the accounts held with these brokers in the future, should the bank backends eventually get sync'd with this clearing house.

Thankfully for now these seem to still be seperate and it wouldn't make much sense to roll out to the consumer if cash is still in circulation, which cannot really be made illegal here as we are still a very cash-heavy country.

Central bank creeps want to end up cucking you

Personally I am not a fan of CBDC's in the slightest, if it were simply for banks to settle faster between them and reduce the cost of their accounting which would then pass on to the consumer hopefully and we get cheaper banking services that would be great but that's really all the upside you could get out of it as a citizen and consumer.

When we consider the downside and how far they could push this thing if there is no push back from the population, then you can see how scary a tool like this can be and why you would want some of your wealth outside the system.

I know I say everything is good for bitcoin and yes a CBDC would probably be short-term bearish if it locks people out of purchasing bitcoin from centralised exchanges but long-term bullish if it drives a stronger P2P market.

How far South Africa goes with this remains to be seen, but I'll be watching developments closely on this front.

Sources:

• businesstech.co.za

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