GOVERNMENTS will never truly embrace CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) to the point of annihilating cash. Power feeds on secrecy. Cash hides what must stay hidden: bribes, mistresses, backroom deals. Digital money is a ledger, a prison. No man wants his vices recorded, his most private transactions exposed.
The dealer, the politician, the banker, the spy – they all need the shadows.
CBDCs leave no shadows. Every payment is tracked, every sin catalogued. That is no good for men who govern in darkness. They demand control, not transparency. Truth is their enemy. Cash slips through fingers, it vanishes into pockets and leaves no trail. Digital money snitches. It betrays.
Crypto is an option, but it is too brittle. The Panama Papers proved that what seems hidden is not always unmirrored; too many leaks, too many weak links. Governments despise leaks. They bury their own secrets deep. But cash? Cash is silent. Cash is loyal.
Men will always cheat. They will hide, they will lie. It is human nature. It is nothing to be proud of or to commend. But that is why the theory of CBDC predominance is doomed. Power loves its secrets too much and men will never stay away from power.
While men govern, they will never vote to get rid of cash or something as anonymous with which to barter.
Even the loudest preacher of CBDCs, Klaus Schwab, couldn’t be saved by them. ‘Mr. Davos.’ The WEF king. Caught. Exposed. Massages on the company dime. Fake reports. Staff withdrawing cash at his command. Of course, he denied it. But he still resigned. An investigation began. There’ll probably be a defamation case in London’s court of oligarchs and IRA Sinn Fein bosses. But transparency? That’s for the little people.
Schwab is the king of hypocrisy. He preaches global unity while in Armani, sipping Champagne in Villa Mundi. His empire ran on glamour and shadows. Were he guilty, his CBDCs would have once and for all exposed him.
Public figures and power brokers like Schwab don’t really want that. They need opacity. They thrive in it. CBDCs would kill their games stone dead. No more offshore tricks. No more ‘trust me’ politics.
Until machines rule, the lies will continue. Secrets are the true currency of power. And as long as men are men, CBDC predominance will stay a dream. They will never give up their secrets. They love them too much.
This article appeared in Country Squire Magazine on May 9, 2025, and is republished by kind permission.
