Americans are worried that a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) could end up compromising essential freedoms, further centralizing monetary policy, and making the country’s currency vulnerable to hacking, according to a recently published Fed survey.
In January last year, the Fed published a white paper on what a CBDC could look like. It asked for public comments on issues like potential risks and benefits a CBDC can have on the country. On April 20, the Fed released the responses in nine documents. Here are some of the various answers and concerns expressed by respondents, some of whom were named, others who were unnamed, as well as those whose names were redacted.
A student from Texas pointed to the breach of privacy, government overreach, and hacking as risks posed by CBDC. “With this digital currency, the government would be able to usurp freedoms without the knowledge/consent of the public.
“The best e-hackers and cybersecurity personnel don’t work for the government. They work in the private sector. It is naive to think, given the government’s track record, that it could ever be trusted to secure such an asset.” A CBDC might also trigger a “run on financial institutions,” the individual warned.
Andrew W. from Virginia warned that centralization of monetary policies can “easily be abused and cause unintended disruption.” CBDCs can further centralize monetary policies and “only increases the risk potential.”
Hollie Bishop from Indiana cited public mistrust as her number one concern about central bank digital currencies. “People are afraid of being constantly monitored. Also, our aging and elderly population pay bills in cash and may not know how to use this system, leaving them susceptible to hunger, bills not being paid, etc.”
Power Issues, Quantum Computing Hack
Lucas Vincent from Arizona warned that power consumption is a major issue. “The power consumption that provides the means of creating said digital currency, which has caused power outages in places like Kazakhstan and even New York, is an enormous risk that puts Earth at stake because of the environmental damage that digital currency mining causes,” he said.
Andy Garcia from Georgia notes that the dependence of CBDCs on electricity makes them vulnerable. “If the long-term goal is to get rid of paper currency, relying strictly on CBDC, the entire economic system will become vulnerable and susceptible to crippling cyber-attacks. There needs to be a fallback system that would work without electricity, much like paper currency does.”
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Horacio Gasquet from Texas pointed out that with the advent of quantum computing, even the most sophisticated encryption algorithms can be cracked. As such, in order for a CBDC to be “truly secure,” the digital currency should be “rooted in quantum key encryption.”
A few of the comments highlighted purported benefits of CBDCs, like faster fund transfers and providing stability in case of hyperinflation.
Should the US Follow Other Nations?
The Fed asked, “How should decisions by other large economy nations to issue CBDCs influence the decision whether the United States should do so?”
An unnamed individual answered (pdf): “It should send warning signs to our country creating a CBDC. There’s a reason China implemented a CBDC, and it’s not for efficiency.”
Aaron Olszewski from New Hampshire also said, “A shift to a CBDC is a shift to push people away from using that nation’s currency.”
Brian Marshall from Idaho replied, “The United States should first worry about following the Constitution and preserving liberty, not trying to follow other countries in their descent into tyranny. Free markets will always provide the means to exchange one currency for another.”
JC Denton from California said that other nations adopting a CBDC does not mean the United States ought to do the same.
“Our financial purpose should be to focus on our own issues. If other nations wish to perform such actions, it is their choice. We don’t need to follow a bad idea just because other groups are doing it,” said Chad Rytting from Utah.
Phil Zobrist from Illinois said that the United States was “the standard” and it can remain so if “you maintain a strong dollar.”
Many of the respondents reacted negatively to the idea of the United States following other countries in adopting financial systems. A small minority voiced support for a CBDC, stating a goal of catching up to other nations.
The US Constitution
Many responses (pdf) to the Fed survey mentioned how the idea of a CBDC was antithetical to the U.S. Constitution.
When the Fed asked, “Should a CBDC be designed to maximize ease of use and acceptance at the point of sale?” Lawrence Raymond from Maryland replied, “No, because all transactions would become public, which goes against the freedoms outlined in the Constitution.”
When the Fed asked, “Could some or all of the potential benefits of a CBDC be better achieved in a different way?” Richard Hay from Texas said, “Yes, return to the constitutional definition of money, which is gold and silver.
“Fiat currencies continue to destroy the poor and middle class by endless expansion of debt and the money supply destroying the value of wages and savings of the vast majority of the population while enriching the owners of assets by driving asset prices higher via inflationary pressures caused by the expansion of credit. Our founders envisioned an honest monetary system.”
Hay added, “The CBDC would eventually be weaponized against political opponents and groups of people that differ from the beliefs of a centralized control governing system.”
Rodger Reed from California said: “Our economy must remain a function of the constitutional mandate created by the founders. By design, a CBDC does not serve the American people the way sound money does.”
When the Fed asked, “What additional potential benefits, policy considerations, or risks of a CBDC may exist that have not been raised in this paper?” Charles Dowling from Colorado said: “The people who are aware of reality do not respect the government whatsoever. And would probably not use your CBDC. And no one wants an illegal, unconstitutional government poking into their business.”
Privacy Concerns
During a recent speech in Washington, Federal Reserve Governor Michelle W. Bowman admitted that “safeguarding privacy is a top concern” with regard to the use of CBDCs. Bowman wants CBDCs to have enough protections to safeguard the privacy of customers and businesses while also being transparent enough to deter criminal activity.
“In thinking about the implications of CBDC and privacy, we must also consider the central role that money plays in our daily lives, and the risk that a CBDC would provide not only a window into but potentially an impediment to, the freedom Americans enjoy in choosing how money and resources are used and invested,” said Bowman.
“So, a central consideration must be how a potential U.S. CBDC could incorporate privacy considerations into its design, and what technology and policy options could support a robust privacy framework.”
An analysis by the Cato Institute warned that CBDCs pose a foundational threat to America’s economic systems. A U.S. CBDC will eventually “usurp” the private sector and endanger the core freedoms of American citizens, it said.
As such, CBDCs should have “no place” in the American economy, the institute stated. It called on Congress to “explicitly prohibit” the Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve from issuing CBDCs in any form.
Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.
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Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.