1st July 2024 > > Euro CBDC & Real Bedford F.C.

tl;dr

Do not read this just before bedtime, unless nightmares are your thing. Real Bedford F.C. is heading to the Premiership.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

OBEMA (Mechelle Obema) has tripled in price since the low seen on 29th June (disclaimer: the CC Treasury has a very small, very speculative holding in this SOL-based meme coin) as conviction grows that with betting markets pricing Trump as 62% to win the Presidential Election then Joe Biden will be persuaded to step aside. Recall that prior to the first debate, Trump and Biden were equally priced. If Biden does withdraw, I suspect Michelle Obama will have a lot of grass-roots popularity.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – It is now the time to get properly scared

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/progress/html/ecb.deprp202406.en.html#/search/Security/1

CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) are an amazingly effective tool for a state’s bureaucrats to wield financial coercion and control over the population of that nation.

If anyone has any doubt about that, then just ponder briefly why it is that Russia, China, and much of the Middle East, are the most enthusiastic embracers of CBDCs, and then tell me you agree with me.

If you don’t, I suggest you emigrate to any one of those places and try to, I don’t know, some suggestions at random, go on a protest march (Russia), declare solidarity with Uyghur Muslims (China), or set up a gay bar (anywhere apart from Israel in that part of the world), and tell me how you get on.

With regards to cryptos, the EU has a very mixed approach. MiCA is the global leader for crypto regulation. Its passing into law clearly demonstrates that despite the bureaucratic overreach embedded in the EU’s organisational structure (three Presidents anyone?), common sense encouraging innovation can prevail. On the other hand, the persistent desire in some of those bureaucrats to wage war on our privacy is frankly very scary.

And now we start to see the outline of the war that will be fought to control our actions and behaviours, to ensure compliance with unspecified, unregulated, anti-democratic demands made by the technocratic elite, demands that will only apply to us mere mortals, not to those making them.

…

We are now in the “preparation phase” of the “digital Euro” lasting until 31st October 2025:

“It involves finalising the digital euro rulebook (by defining a single set of rules to be applied to payments in digital euro) … a deeper dive into technical aspects of the digital euro, … and a testing and rollout plan.”

There it is in black and white – the Euro CBDC is a given, the only undecided is the timing of its launch. This is despite an internally commissioned report that confirmed the view of Fed Governor Christopher Waller that a CBDC is “… a solution in search of a problem”. When the likes of Convicted Criminal Christine Lagarde and Ursula “I am living proof of the Peter Principle” von der Leyen spy the opportunity to control peoples’ lives there is no stopping them.

…

Section two of this paper is titled “Guaranteeing digital euro user privacy” which makes the preposterous claim that “The privacy and data protection of digital euro users have been fundamental to the project from the beginning, in line with the “privacy by design” approach.”

Excuse my scepticism, but this is utter nonsense.

We know from Choke Point 1.0 through to 3.0 that both unelected and elected officials will use whatever administrative means are at their disposal to modify behaviours that they deem incorrect, even when those behaviours are entirely legal.

This paper explains that “… privacy would be implemented in such a way that the Eurosystem itself – the issuer and payment infrastructure provider – would not be able to directly link transactions to specific individuals.” Again, what utter tosh. That information will be available and it will be used.

There is one interesting section that touches on the potential damage to the commercial banking industry. For the uninformed, a CBDC will look superficially attractive compared to keeping savings in a normal bank account, especially during times of stress. Bank deposits form a core part of a bank’s capital base, and a cheap one at that. CBDCs will undermine that capital base, raising the cost of capital for all industries, hurting productivity, and making us all poorer for it.

And let’s not forget that during the GFC, the government of Cyprus stole a portion of all deposits over EUR 100k held in Cypriot banks. It is fair to say that much of that money was dirty money stolen from the Russian state that should never have been allowed into the Euro banking system in the first place, but that misses the point.

The launch of the Euro CBDC will be followed by a requirement to hold digital euros which will then be regularly subject to bouts of government theft whenever any minor crisis occurs, in the name of “stability”, or simply on an ongoing basis to, for example, combat the “climate emergency”, driven largely by the ever-accelerating carbon emissions from China and India.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Real Bedford F.C.

https://www.curiouscryptos.com/post/14th-april-2024-real-bedford-f-c

Real Bedford F.C. has renewed its sponsorship deal with Gemini for a further five years. The sponsorship is paid in BTC. The entirety of Real Bedford’s treasury is in BTC, mirroring the decision made by the CC Treasury Committee some time ago to pivot into SOL.

Co-owner Peter McCormack explains:

"By integrating bitcoin into our treasury, we have achieved a +62% return, thereby strengthening the club's financial position and protecting our cost base against the recent surge in inflation."