This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, May 23rd, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

If you like financial privacy, there are good reasons to be skeptical of a US- run Central Bank Digital Currency.

Will Luther is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.

We discussed the push for a Central Bank Digital

currency and what it could mean for the ability of Americans

to maintain control and discretion over their financial

dealings. What are your biggest concerns about a Central Bank digital

currency given the experience that we've seen in China?

Well, I think that the biggest risk of having a central bank digital

currency is just the possibility that this will further erode the financial privacy that we have,

especially if we're looking at a country like China.

I think about China's experience with the internet

and not so keen to be open, right?

They have erected this major firewall that prevents their citizens from accessing some external

sites.

They monitor what their citizens post and they censor those posts.

And they seem to be doing much the same thing when it comes to money.

So they're piloting this Central Bank digital currency, the EU1.

And that EU1 gives them the ability to monitor all the transactions that their

customers, that their citizens are making and also preventing some of those

transactions from taking place should they see fit to do so. So I think financial

...