This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Saturday, December 2nd, 2023.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The short history of Central Bank digital currencies is not promising for its future, but many governments

seem keen on pursuing the new currencies anyway.

Cato's Nick Anthony is among the fellows who have launched the Human Rights Foundation's

new CBDC tracker.

We spoke last month about why the project matters.

Nick, you and I have talked numerous times about CBDCs, about the specter of CBDCs in the United States and countries that have

already rolled them out with not exactly promising results.

So why is it important that we keep a careful track of where these things are moving or bubbling up or might be under consideration by

central banks throughout the world. Unfortunately, all too often, we see these huge impacts of changing laws or new

expansions of governments after the fact. We see it looking backwards and trying to pull apart what's already been built up.

Right now it's so important to track the development of Central Bank Digital Currencies or

CBDCs because we have the opportunity to have a voice in this debate, in this discussion

before it becomes a norm that we're looking back on. There are countries that have adopted them, but they're in the vast

minority right now across the world. And so it's important that the public becomes part of this conversation before they have no say at all.

So you, working within the Human Rights Foundation, began sort of putting together a project to track where CBDCs are on the move, so to speak, and where they're less likely to pop up.

What did you find in putting together this data?

I think one thing that is a little alarming

with putting together this data

is that we see a clear trend of

CBDCs being pushed forward in countries that have low

...