Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sounds Alarm on CBDCs and Fednow System

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently filed paperwork to run for President in 2024, has voiced his concern about the potential risks of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the Federal Reserve’s new Fednow system. In a tweet this week, Kennedy warned that CBDCs could lead to financial slavery and political tyranny. He also warned that the introduction of the Fednow system could be the first step towards banning and seizing bitcoin, just as the Treasury did with gold 90 years ago.

Fednow is the Federal Reserve’s real-time gross settlement system for instant payments. However, the Fed’s CBDC development is separate from Fednow, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last month that the central bank’s CBDC work is still in the early stages of experimentation.

Kennedy expressed his concerns over CBDCs’ potential for government surveillance of private financial transactions. He noted that while cash transactions are anonymous, CBDCs will enable the central bank to monitor all financial transactions, limit dollar amounts on transactions, restrict where money can be spent, and control when money expires. He also warned that a CBDC tied to digital ID and social credit scores could enable the government to freeze assets or limit spending to approved vendors if citizens do not comply with arbitrary mandates such as vaccine mandates.

Kennedy argued that the government’s CBDC implementation could be the first step towards a total ban on bitcoin and the seizure of its assets. He urged people to watch as governments use the Covid-19 pandemic and the banking crisis to promote CBDCs as a safe haven from paper currencies or as protection against bank runs.

Numerous other voices have expressed concerns over the federal government’s launch of a CBDC, including US Representative Tom Emmer, who introduced the CBDC Anti-Surveillance Act in February. US Senator Ted Cruz recently submitted a bill to prohibit the Federal Reserve from developing a direct-to-consumer CBDC, while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis proposed outlawing CBDCs’ use as money in his state in March.