DIGITAL CURRENCY – New Threats to Freedom

Afonso Almeida Brandão"

TImotiy Alexander Vieira, a South African of Portuguese descent, founded and chairs the Escolhe Portugal association, the entrepreneurship booster Be Brave, and the Brave Generation Academy (BGA), which he created in 2020 after traveling around the world with his family in 2019. A Portugal brand activist, he believes that, with the right vision and funding, the country has unique conditions to attract the best talent and investment in the world.

There are topics that burst onto the public scene. And then there are others, like central bank digital currencies, the famous CBDCs, that creep in quietly, wrapped up in press conferences with colorful graphics and empty phrases about "innovation." Everything so modern, so efficient, so… silent.

And that silence speaks volumes.

We are witnessing the greatest transformation in the relationship between the State and the citizen since the existence of money, but almost no one talks about it. It doesn't appear in debates, it's not part of campaigns, it doesn't motivate protests. Perhaps because it's easier to sell the narrative of "modernization" than to admit what's really at stake: a tool for total control.

Yes, absolutely. And no, that's not an exaggeration.

Recent history shows exactly why. A CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) is not just digital money; it's traceable, programmable, and controllable money. It's the wallet where the owner ceases to be the citizen and becomes the system. It's absolute power over each person's economic life. "All in the name of security," of course. The same magic word that, in recent years, has justified almost everything.

Just look outside.

In Canada, in 2022, during the Freedom Convoy, the government froze the bank accounts of hundreds of people—some hadn't even been to Ottawa. All it took was "supporting" the cause, sometimes just with a donation. No one needed lengthy processes, warrants, or courts. A signature and a click were all it took. And these measures occurred without CBDC. Imagine what it would be like with one.

Closer to home, the United Kingdom offers another warning. Since 2019, thousands of people have been arrested for social media posts deemed “offensive” or “anxiety-inducing.” Satire, emojis, private jokes, shares, even an “N” in response to a tweet. Police search at six in the morning for 'memes' while 90% of violent crimes go unsolved. All within the law, of course. Vague, outdated laws, but conveniently flexible. This is the point: intentions change, but the instruments remain. And when the instruments allow for surveillance, punishment, and shaping of behavior in real time… the temptation to use them becomes irresistible. Now add to this a state-controlled digital currency. With it, every payment can be monitored, limited, and conditioned. You can define what each citizen buys, when they buy, and how much they buy. You can block donations, impose consumption categories, or even set expiration dates for the money – a literal “use it or lose it.”

And, of course, everything would be sold with the usual paternalistic marketing: It's for your own good. It's to combat fraud. It's to protect democracy. But if this were truly harmless, the topic would be openly debated. It wouldn't be hidden in ECB technical notes and speeches by consultants who were never elected by anyone. Nevertheless, the most disturbing thing isn't the technology. It's the normalization of control. It's the speed with which mature democracies find it acceptable to arrest people for posts, freeze accounts for protests, or monitor "unpleasant" opinions. It's the ease with which the word "security" has become a blank check. Freedom rarely dies dramatically. It dies like this: through slow erosion, justification after justification, always with good intentions. CBDCs, if they proceed without democratic checks and balances, will be just another step, but perhaps the most dangerous, because they give the State what no secret police of the 20th century achieved and what no government of the 21st century should be able to achieve: permanent access to everyone's economic life, effortlessly, without mandates, without opposition.

This is not about demonizing technology. It's about preventing it from being used to build a future where citizens live in a kind of digital cage: with beautiful doors, invisible walls, and impeccable surveillance. Ask the Chinese how CBDCs created millions of digitally "dead" citizens who were never prosecuted or convicted of any crime…

The day a government can turn off our money will be the day it no longer needs to turn off anything else.

On that day, FREEDOM will have expired, without cashback, without warning and, of course, always, always, in the name of Progress.

2025/12/3