US Senator Ted Cruz introduced a bill on March 26 to prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The “Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act,” would prohibit the Fed from offering certain products or services directly to American individuals, a key component of any CBDC.
The Texas Republican’s bill can be considered a companion bill to Minnesota Republican Representative Tom Emmer’s anti-CBDC legislation, which was reintroduced on March 6. A companion bill is a piece of legislation that is similarly or identically worded to another bill and introduced in the other chamber of Congress.
Both bills state that the prohibition should not include any dollar-denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private and “preserves the privacy protections of United States coins and physical currency.”
Since 2020, the Federal Reserve has been exploring a digital version of the US dollar. According to the CBDC Tracker, at least four research projects are currently underway by various Federal Reserve entities.
Cruz has been a vocal opponent of CBDCs since at least 2022 when he introduced legislation that would ban the Fed from introducing a direct-to-consumer CBDC. He followed it up with similar legislation in 2023 and, in 2024, sought to block the attempt by then-President Joe Biden’s administration to create a CBDC. […]
— Read More: cointelegraph.com
