Former BlackRock portfolio manager Ed Dowd described a future economic lockdown: AI attacks banks, money disappears and governments offer salvation in the form of a central bank digital currency. After the transition to CBDC, the buyer will apparently be allowed to purchase only 10 grams of beef per month. Exhausted the quota - the cashier refuses to pay. The payment network is able to implement the ban before a person knows about it. The digital currency itself does not give the state such power. When making a regular card payment, the bank reveals the amount and the seller. The store knows how much beef is in the basket. To meet Dowd's quota, the authorities would have to combine the receipt of the sale with the identity of the buyer and give the payment intermediary the right to refuse on a government list. Thus, a binding government order will make the cash register a control point. The European Central Bank is already preparing the infrastructure for a digital euro, but the project is more complex than Dowd's nightmare. With an online payment, the bank identifies the sender, but the ECB, according to the announced plan, will not be able to identify the owner of the payment. For offline payments, an even stricter barrier is provided: the details of the transaction will remain with the payer and the recipient. The government will have to modify this plan or obtain commodity data from another source. The European Commission has separately proposed banning programmable digital euros. The authorities will not be able to designate items, recipients or hours of authorized recreation. In this case, the buyer will be able to determine the terms of payment himself, for example to transfer the amount after the delivery of the order. The buyer controls his terms, but the clerk can force someone else. Therefore, the legal ban on programming is particularly important for the freedom of purchase. The ECB also has an additional draft limit. Digital euros are supposed to be kept in the account in limited quantities, so that during a banking panic depositors do not transfer all their deposits to the central bank.

Former BlackRock portfolio manager Ed Dowd described a future economic lockdown: AI attacks banks, money disappears and governments offer salvation in the form of a central bank digital currency. After the transition to CBDC, the buyer will apparently be allowed to purchase only 10 grams of beef per month. Exhausted the quota - the cashier refuses to pay. The payment network is able to implement the ban before a person knows about it. The digital currency itself does not give the state such power. When making a regular card payment, the bank reveals the amount and the seller. The store knows how much beef is in the basket. To meet Dowd's quota, the authorities would have to combine the receipt of the sale with the identity of the buyer and give the payment intermediary the right to refuse on a government list. Thus, a binding government order will make the cash register a control point. The European Central Bank is already preparing the infrastructure for a digital euro, but the project is more complex than Dowd's nightmare. With an online payment, the bank identifies the sender, but the ECB, according to the announced plan, will not be able to identify the owner of the payment. For offline payments, an even stricter barrier is provided: the details of the transaction will remain with the payer and the recipient. The government will have to modify this plan or obtain commodity data from another source. The European Commission has separately proposed banning programmable digital euros. The authorities will not be able to designate items, recipients or hours of authorized recreation. In this case, the buyer will be able to determine the terms of payment himself, for example to transfer the amount after the delivery of the order. The buyer controls his terms, but the clerk can force someone else. Therefore, the legal ban on programming is particularly important for the freedom of purchase. The ECB also has an additional draft limit. Digital euros are supposed to be kept in the account in limited quantities, so that during a banking panic depositors do not transfer all their deposits to the central bank.