For example: in Canada, the bank accounts of those who protested were literally frozen (for simply speaking out or being critical) and talks of potential CBDCs (aka. used to deduct funds from one’s account as a fine) whilst considering on abolishing cash altogether.
The alternative (for now at least) may be Crypto (online) until they consider that “illegal” in the future penalizing those who are using it, framing that as money laundering or tax evasion, whilst pushing their propaganda of “tap & go is safe & convenient”.
The answers are divided between:
- “Cash is King” (it allows anonymous or “private” transactions between you and the merchant)
- “Contactless” (convenient, but your purchases & transactions are monitored by the state)
Cash is apparently the last bastion of “anonymous” transactions where it doesn’t appear on one’s statement and one gets to keep their money without the state deducting it from their account since a nation’s central bank has monopoly over CBDCs and one’s funds.
That’s not even the end of it: them trying to make BTC or equivalent illegal by making CBDCs the default replacing gold overnight, it would mean all those bills you have are worthless. At this point, the only payment method is CBDCs that are linked to one’s digital ID.
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Cash is not 100% anonymous though. Vendors see you, cameras record you, you may even have to sign and present id for some transactions.
US recently introduced the bright idea of banknote serial numbers blacklists. Great incentive to hold greenbacks!
Cash is king. Always use cash when possible. I do, and I love it…
I’m happy with the opinions and reasons for it here.
Unfortunately IRL people and especially the youth who have grown up with it are totally pro-digital.
They look at you as if you’re a flat earther when you mention the possible consequences.“Some people are stupid” - no shit.
Why is this a question?
“Should people be allowed to keep their rights?” – this is usually intended to spark discussion, but discussing from this pov helps those who want bad things more than those who dont.
The only private alternative to cash that im aware of is monero. Nothing else is as private as cash.
Bitcoin and Ethereum both have private L2s.
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.
quantum money lol
Yes. Once cash is gone a huge aspect of privacy goes with it.
I am afraid it will happen in my lifetime.
Cash in the United States is not as private as it seems. Eventually the bills will be scanned at various points through the financial system and the serial numbers are logged by these authorities. It may take some time to collect the data versus being able to view a blockchain, but cash isn’t as anonymous as it appears. And with a vastly decreasing amount of cash in circulation, it makes it a lot easier for the Govt to track its usage. It’s still the best option even considering cryptocurrencies.
Another reason for the decline in cash is that as the U.S. debt increases, the economy will have to inflate along with it, and it’s much easier to manage increasing inflation in an economy without physical currency. If things get really bad and conditions exist that would cause a bank run, well, good luck doing that if you can’t have cash. Run off with a copy of the database or something.
You are wrong about debt leading to inflation, that’s monetarism and has been thoroughly debunked.
I’m so tired of hearing people spout QTM bullshit. Good on you, stranger, for calling it out.
I don’t see the benefit for the average person to get rid of cash. If it’s digital it’s trackable, can be hacked and more easily controlled by other parties. Also it allows for banks to charge more service fees.
Even with cash we’re at the mercy of a country, if they fuck up their economy and hyperinflate it, money is gone anyway.
The only way forward is to carry around stuff that has intrinsic universal value. The currency of the future is potatoes, start stocking up.
And 9mm
They’re harder to eat
Much more durable and portable than potatoes too
And sometimes they decide that the cash you have in hand to be worthless.
It is not the anonymity that is important.
It is not having to ask someone permission to spend money like with a debit card, credit card, and even fucking crypto need institutional permission to have access to your power to spend yo money.
anonymity ain’t shit.
Not even just permission, especially given most of these systems are made to operate on your phone rather than through a physical card.
Oops, your phone died? Sorry, no groceries for you! Did your internet connection stop working on your phone? Sooooooooooorry, you’re not gonna be able to pay your bus fare.
I don’t know about Samsung and Apple, but Google Pay works offline.
Most can, but they still rely on your phone getting an internet connection later, on your phone being trusted to send data over itself, and of course still require your phone to actually be charged. (Can change if it’s a regular card depending on the issuer though)
Also, if you’re just generally curious about stuff related to offline payments, there’s actually a major security hole that Visa refuses to fix, which allows a device to pretend to be an offline-only card reader, then charge any value to someone’s card, and get away with it, even if their device is locked.
Not really a point in favor of my original argument though, since CBDC infrastructure would require replacing or updating all the readers anyways, and implementing the standards to prevent such an attack, like MasterCard has used for a while now.
Only if the store you’re paying at has Internet.
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).
In 2026, when is your phone running out of battery
Not too regularly to me, but it happens frequently to most of my friends, and some street performers I know who don’t always have good access to a power outlet, or the money for a portable charger.
…or losing wifi?
I and many other people regularly experience complete cell dropouts when at my local grocery store. No service. (Works fine outside and slightly down the block) We are in a city, not the middle of nowhere either.
There have also been internet dropouts for my local store’s machines, meaning people paying with cash could go instantly, whereas people who only had cards or phone payments had to wait in a massive line since every transaction took 2 minutes to go through.
You can also just get a crypto card if your worried about your phone being unreliable.
Sure, but at that point I could just get literally any card. I was only commenting on CBDCs, though I suppose the same critiques could apply to direct crypto transfers.
At the end of the day, CBDCs tend to rely on phones to work, and thus can’t work if your phone doesn’t, unlike cards, and especially unlike cash. (given cash relies on nothing but you and the person you’re transacting with believing the cash is real, vs phone payments or even just cards still requiring an internet connection at some point, and power to the reader, plus permission from an external gatekeeper as the cherry on top)
Yeah, both of those things happen to me on a regular basis. If I’m using my phone, it might only last a few hours into the day.
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.
As Metallica said, sad but true. Ok, you have all your money in your bank account, but those are literally just 0 and 1s, our economy depends literally in non tangible numbers, and that’s it. And you cannot pay unless the bank explicitly allow it, so your "money’ isn’t your money now.
In the same way you need permission of your regime to leave the country.
You will not get a passport/ID or whatever if they don’t allow it.You wouldn’t download a bank
fuck Metallica
Especially with things like cyberattacks (institution losing access to your accounts), scamming (you lose access to your accounts), power failures (everyone loses access to their accounts), etc.
I mean, I literally have a small stash of money in the closet (some 20’s and a bunch of smaller notes), so that if a semi-major disaster hits, I can still buy any supplies I can find that I need - gas, water, food, a couple nights in a hotel, whatever. Plastic is a great backup system, but it relies on me having my card, my card having enough money free, the merchant having power to run the card, the merchant’s communications working, the system they link into having power and communications, etc. With cash, it’s just “here, take this” and it’s all good.
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.
A CBDC would give the government more control over your money. They have a lot of control now, but there is at least a middle man that the government has to compel to comply. With a CBDC, the government would be able to allow/disallow any transaction. Right now, they would have to convince Paypal or Zelle to invalidate a transaction. The on/off ramps to Monero and Bitcoin are the only locations with which the government can exert their power over those currencies. While Bitcoin is not private, it can be a good tool for privacy if used correctly. Cash, however, is still the most private. So I’ll just keep slipping quarters in the keyboard to pay for my online purchases.
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.
Not any intermediary. You can still buy/sell crypto and goods using darknet markets and dead drops. Worst case scenario, you’ll be hiding Tide laundry detergent in public restrooms.
I meant payment processors like zelle or paypal, or banking apps. Obviously you can just use crypto. That’s not going away.
So you’re betting your privacy on government inefficiency. You do you.
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 agree
Transitioning to CBDCs would just be making the back-end more robust
What exactly “transition to CBDCs” means is kind of ambiguous, but the way it’s looking is that what we’re going to get is licensing of privately issued stablecoins, which then increasingly get used behind the scenes in payments infrastructure. They passed a regulatory framework for this last year in the US and things have been progressing since then.
I don’t know because no major central gov has made one. Stablecoins arent CBDCs.
Don’t they fill the same role? What would the practical differences be? They compete for basically the same market anyway, so it’s worth thinking about what system is likely to become the standard.
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.
I think they will stick with companies like USDC and just keep a leash on them. These stablecoins have freeze functions, the government can take charge of those if they want, and it’s potentially a major source of demand for US treasuries in an environment where US debt keeps looking like a worse bet to everyone, since the legislation mandates full reserves and specifies what those reserves can be denominated in.
Not that any of this is especially a good thing imo. The value of crypto is permissionless money, stablecoins are not that and have centralized controls, at least the popular ones the law approves of.
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.
Definitely, cash is critical
More and more companies by me are asking people to use cash and offering a discount for doing so.
Credit card fees are a big expense for small businesses.
In the event of a disaster where the power grid and/or data communication goes down, how the fuck you gonna buy groceries, or anything else for that matter? 🤔
In most cases this problem is already there, even with cash. One time the local supermarkets lost the connection to their backbone system due to a cyber attack. They did not sell a thing, not even for cash, as their registers were dependend on that connection.
I’m not sure how card payments work in the US, but here the terminals have offline-mode where the purchases are just stored locally until it comes online again.
If there’s a total blackout, having cash maybe be better (but absolutely no guarantee they’re usable at the grocery store)…but there’s a whole lot of other much more pressing issues in that case.
My cash worked fine getting some extra groceries at the store when there was this Iberian Peninsula wide (so Portugal + Spain) daylong blackout the other month.
People without cash were screwed. Some were complaining of having no drinking water (because without power the water from the utilities was soon out as they couldn’t run their pumps) and not being able to buy any because they had no cash to pay for it.
Also worked fine when we got hit by a freak storm that trashed lots of trees and plenty of roofs and took power down for 4 days, and I’m in a small city where utilities quickly got fixed - some people out there in small villages were still without power almost a month later.
Mind you, people paying by phone would be even worse - most phones run out of power in a day or two unless you have an external power bank to charge the phone (which I do, but most people don’t).
None of this event was some giant deadly thing - the first was a loss of control on the Spanish side ofthe power grid that cascaded into a massive blackout as almost all powder generation ended up switched of and had to be brought up slowly block by block whist keeping generation balanced with consumptions and the second was a strong geographically very focused storm effect with high speed wins during the night that brought down power poles, including the high voltage power distribution ones.
There were no floods or more than a handful of deaths, just lots of topple poles and trees and roofs that lost tiles, so there weren’t really any much more pressing issues than having no power and hence no water, with the former leading to unecessary extra problems for people who had no cash to buy groceries with (and because this was a highly focused storm event, there were no problems supplying the place with goods).
And this is far from the only situation were you’re stuck without cash: for example banking systems going down means you can’t pay with debit cards linked to accounts in that bank (a problem I’ve seen happen several times both here and when living abroad) and the banking payment system going down means you can’t pay at all. The mobile network going down is also a problem because most electronic payment point of sale systems use it rather than landline. Beyond that there are all kind of issues linked to relying on a 3rd part entity for payments like the guy at the supermarket the other day whose just received replacement card wasn’t activated so he he got to the till to pay a trolley full of shopping and couldn’t.
In Engineering terms, cashless payments have a lot of external dependencies that cash payments do not, plus there is a natural “buffering” with cash (which you yourself can make deeper by having some cash at home) which doesn’t exist with digital payments, making cash way more robust than digital payments when doing physically-present payments.
Why do you think you’d be able to buy groceries with cash if the power grid goes down?
Hurricane Katrina, 2 weeks no power and no internet or cell service. The local store was literally giving the cold foods away, as the coolers didn’t work, but they ended up getting a backup generator in for basic power to the lights and pumps, and they had like a mile of cars lined up to get gas, and buy dry goods and canned goods.
This was back in 2005 ya know, in a small town flooded in and struggling. Even the people running the store were struggling, they had to resort to taking a tractor to work. But we all helped each other, and the store was glad to sell whatever viable goods they had, for cash, and kept up with everything on pen and paper.
they had to resort to taking a tractor to work.
I feel bad for the situation but TBH that’s kind of badass.
And after Ida. No power for a month in some places. People were selling cooked food on the streets for cash. I’m sure if you were enterprising, you could buy/sell groceries the same way.
They could have just used the pen and paper with no cash.
That’s where cash serves a purpose, as a payment method during that kind of scenario.
