Florida Governor bans CBDCs in the State, signs new bill

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; Image: Shutterstock 

Ron DeSantis, the Governor of the US state of Florida who has relentlessly attacked CBDCs so far, brought in a new law on Friday that bans the use of the United States Federal CBDC in the state. It also prohibits CBDCs issued by foreign governments from being used within the state. 

Recently, he has also said that he wanted to fight this part of “woke politics” and suggested some concerns about CBDCs which could be used to control Americans.

"Anyone with their eyes open could see the danger this type of an arrangement would mean for Americans who want to exercise their financial independence and would like to be able to conduct business without having the government know every single transaction they're making in real time."

The bill, dubbed SB-7054, amends the state's law to remove CBDCs from the definition of money. It was passed in a Florida House of Representatives session with only one vote which was not in its favour. It also calls on other governments to prohibit the same through their commercial codes.

DeSantis claimed that U.S President Joe Biden’s administration is studying CBDCs and he took inspired action from it. At the signing ceremony of the bill, he said:

“I don’t think they would have done that if they didn't intend on implementing this. Were a U.S. CBDC to be issued, it would be “a massive transfer of power from consumers to a central authority.”

He also viewed CBDC’s potential introduction as a threat to crypto: “I think they want to crowd out and eliminate other types of digital assets like cryptocurrency because they can’t control that, so they don’t like that.”

The bill has introduced changes in the current commercial code of the state. In what seemed as a reference to the proposed article 12 of the Uniform Commercial Codes, he said:

“You started to have a movement among the states to actually add CBDC to their Uniform Commercial Codes, and this is something that was pushed by a lot of powers that be to do that,”

The law will come into effect from July 1, 2023.

Shashank is the founder of yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash