What Is Programmable Money?
There are 3 types of people in this world.
There are those who read that SWIFT has "solve[d] the significant challenge of interoperability in cross-border transactions by bridging between different distributed ledger technology (DLT) networks and existing payment systems" and
- get a chill down their spine
- rub their hands in glee
- ask what SWIFT is, get bored halfway through the answer, and go back to checking their TikTok feed
Now, given that you're reading this editorial, you're probably in the first category of people. (And if you're in the second category, all I can say is GET OFF OF MY LAWN YA DAMN GLOBALIST BANKSTER, YOU!)
But I guarantee most of your friends, family, co-workers, neighbours and acquaintances are in the third category. And who can blame them? Financial mumbo jumbo is designed to be as eye-wateringly boring and unsexy as possible.
But here's the rub: while the public focuses on distractions and entertainment, the global banking cabal is hard at work engineering a new form of money that will serve as the backbone of the most sophisticated system of financial surveillance and control the world has ever seen. It is not hyperbole to say that the very fate of the human species hangs in the balance.
So, are you at a loss to explain to your normie friends why the coming central bank digital currency (CBDC) paradigm is so important and why it should be a primary concern for all of humanity?
Well, then, today is your lucky day. This editorial is for you . . . and them!
To access this week's edition of The Corbett Report Subscriber, please sign in and continue reading below.
Not a Corbett Report member yet? Sign up to BECOME A MEMBER of the website and read the full newsletter or CLICK HERE to access the editorial for free.
This content is restricted to site members. If you are an existing user, please log in. New users may register here.
Filed in: Newsletter
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
If you ask Lyn Alden, what is money?, you get this:
https://www.lynalden.com/what-is-money/
You’re welcome.
Thanks!
Thank you James. Seashells and playing cards all the way, we decide!
I would very much like a hard copy of the Al-queda documentary. Please make a usb version available soon!
I wonder how the politicians will get their illegal drugs and hookers?
Not everyone can be paid with bug-burger points.
As a programmer I think that this programmable money could be ultimately hackable.
and that will be very destructive too.
We have had quite a lot of infinite money glitches in video games.
What I see as solution is to create a very strong parallel economy.
I’m struck by this too including the whole IoT and CBDC thing.
Power/internet glitches, lag, poor coding, data corruption, human input/output errors, hacking etc etc. The list is long on how all of this could and does go wrong.
If anyone hasn’t seen Brasil by Terry Gilliam (reviewed a long time ago by James) then please do so. One glitch, one bug and a person’s life can be ruined.
But, by the same token, I personally think that the digital Panopticon of the parasites is an illusion – the reality will not be some slick uber-control grid, but a glitchy, hackable piece of shit.
Lance
“… the reality will not be some slick uber-control grid, but a glitchy, hackable piece of shit….”
True, but given a choice I’d rather not have to be “The Stainless Steel Rat”…. their system wont work but it will create massive suffering
Yep, me too Duck.
I just see some hope in the fact that, for example, Amazon and Fedex have gone back to the drawing board on their doorstep delivery-bots as failures after years of research and investment. That is, the parasites can’t even do something as simple as delivering packages without us ‘useless meatsacks’.
I see no problem at all with this. Each individual’s account will have its own set of directives. The less than 1% will have blow, hookers, and enslaved, sex toy children written into the code as acceptable expenditures.
cut to a classroom on the inter galactic time slip shunter:
“those were the days,
Those who had the most, did because they had given the most away
those that ruled were choosen because they had the least interest (in enmass governance)
those that got the job done did so with little toil because so many were keen to help
human daily effort was aimed at supporting opportunity to realize ones unique strengths in harmony with custodianship
those that looked after their local environment were also looked after by the very flora and fauna they custodianed.
the economy was parallel with an arcane dead-ended one (known by earthlings as a “musical chair dog eat dog competitive dominator paradigm”) for a while, but the very-big-speed train, powered by a reliably unreliable form of relativity, suddenly self-obliterated, as the well worn track wrapped itself round a virtually digital telephone pole. Gently but surely the new mariposa economy flutter-byed off as the players became further entrained by the beauty vector, the course towards home.”
Money doesn’t grow on trees. Trees are for hanging bankers from.
Brilliant article. Thank you.
A quiet audience today. Hands up if anyone here likes bitcoin yet?
✋
FatherGeorge
The thing about Bitcoin is (like all money) its fake.
I could set up my own crypto currency right now, though I really want a Steam Punk Paper Ledger system (though the cost of the carrier pigeons needed to keep the system up to date might be cost prohibitive) or use seal shells or bottle caps or hundred dollar bills…its only USEFUL if people THINK its money (the WEF Sodomite, Harari, is actually correct on that in his book ‘sapiens’ )
REAL wealth is people, and those are lazy and stupid and take the path of least resistance which is the system the Ruling Class sets up… I don’t hate the idea of bitcoin, but given a choice I’d prefer a physical form of cash that only the people exchanging it for services in a dirty truck stop bathroom know is being exchanged. 😉 JK about the bathroom…. parking lots are fine lol
Change takes time. Take a look at https://coin.dance/blocks/growth too see what momentum is building up.
Best regards
Steffen Sølling
Master of Science (Economics and Business Administration) from Copenhagen Business School, and former Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (in Windows NT and 2000), and self-taught in Austrian Economics
Founder of https://bitcoinsteffen.com/ in 2015
Denmark
Steffan
But bitcoin will still always be less anonymous then a wad of notes.
It will always be less convenient and require more infrastructure than handing notes across a counter.
Not that I hate the idea of crypto or anything, and it beats Central Bank Digital Currency by a mile, but CASH is the easiest trustless person to peer system. It is however probably great for internet interaction and such
Bitcoin was not designed to be anonymous, but instead have a healthy balance between privacy and the ability to track crime. I know that a lot of “crime” today is victimless “crime”, but there is also real crime like robberies, ransomware etc. I think Bitcoin (Satoshi Vision) has a healthy balance. I believe Bitcoin will make honest people more powerful, and powerful people more honest. You can read about Bitcoin’s privacy model in chapter 10 of Satoshi’s whitepaper.
We now live in a world where a lot of trade takes place over large distances. For example, I don’t imagine many of the subscribers here have paid for their subscription with physical cash. Digital cash works much better for that.
In many instances trade can also be automated (think subscriptions / recurring deliveries) with a proper payment technology. Physical cash is also unfit for that task. Automation lifts prosperity because people can do more.
Even in physical proximity Bitcoin has advantages over physical cash:
1. Counting, handling, and storing both the payment and the change amount is much more automated.
2. Physical cash is prone to (gradual) inflation because of the money printing which the current system allows. Bitcoin has the potential to completely phase out inflation, because the supply of Bitcoin has a limit which will be reached near year 2140. See this 2015 documentary for more details: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2yBDEE4Ctf0Zk81dldsVG9NN0k/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-Ug9U8tp_dP5hVJ-6DVzA5Q
We also shouldn’t underestimate the ideological power of the whole world witnessing the spread of a voluntary money as opposed to the top-down enforced monetary systems of today. That may become similar to whole world witnessing the fall of the Berlin wall, and the communist Soviet empire.
Bitcoin is also a competitive network. On top of that network can be built new businesses which can better compete with existing businesses. It may gradually change the culture.
steffan
“…but instead have a healthy balance between privacy and the ability to track crime….”
Dude… you just made my point.
EVERY TRANSACTION is trackable, its not even like you need to be the government to track it either.
“….Even in physical proximity Bitcoin has advantages over physical cash:….”
No, I think it clearly does not
“…1. Counting, handling, and storing both the payment and the change amount is much more automated….”
Exactly as I said, cash needs no tech except a hand to pass and a hand to take. It requires no electricity for this transaction, no internet, no hackable mobile computer/Spydevice pretending to be a telephone…. and there are no fee’s when I pass the cash, and there is no delay while far away devices and systems, which I know nothing about, do the transfer.
“…2. Physical cash is prone to (gradual) inflation because of the money printing which the current system allows. Bitcoin has the potential…”
Bitcoin has the POTENTIAL to be stable, but in practice it is volatile as fk.
While a fixed amount of Bitcoin SOUNDS wonderful it might ALSO might lead to the same issues that Gold had when IT was the Oligarchs preferred money over silver and money was too hard to get hold of for the Non Rich to transact properly….. money printing is BY ITSELF not a terrible evil snd is sometimes needed, the American colonies printed their own local money and it worked great until the British tried to force them to use scarce English money.
Money printing to fund Government spending is the ACTUAL evil
“…It may gradually change the culture…”
While I would agree that its good to send money on the internet and such in what way does a Bitcoin Network differ from everyone using Credit or Debit cards????
Your actually making me like Bitcoin LESS.
“and there are no fee’s when I pass the cash, and there is no delay while far away devices and systems, which I know nothing about, do the transfer.”
The Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) transaction fee is currently 0.000007 USD according to https://coin.dance/. I believe that is a lot lower than costs related to physical cash. Physical cash also needs systems to protect it against theft etc. The tech is for example physical wallets, physical cash registers, money transport vehicles, armed guards, etc. These things don’t come for free.
You don’t have to wait long for a BSV transaction to be processed by lots of machines. The payment van be sent directly from Alice to Bob, and Bob’s wallet can then send it to the network to prevent double spends. I expect a waiting time less than a second. If you are interested I can show you in a video meeting between the two of us. I will donate you a small amount, and you will see how fast it arrives. Interested?
steffan
“…The Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) transaction fee is currently 0.000007 USD….”
Meaning that it costs more then cash… the fact that the Fee is small (Right Now) is irrelevant since the low cast of that Fee is undoubaly linked to MANY MANY other things (electricity, servers, internet and probably investment money for the start ups providing the services) being cheap and easily available
“…You don’t have to wait long for a BSV transaction to be processed by lots of machines….”
Translated that means
I wait longer then putting something in a humans hand
I can do transactions in MOST places IF there is a system set up. Unlike Cash which requires 2 people and cash and nothing else
“… The payment van be sent directly from Alice to Bob, and Bob’s wallet can then send it to the network to prevent double spends….”
I guess that when a smart kid finds a way to trick the system its the same as counterfeiting cash…except that a certain degree of artisty is needed to make convincing counterfeit physical cash where as once the trick is learned by ONE hacker it may easily spread to others of lesser skill… also while robbing people of cash can be done the kind of person who can steal via electronic cash is gonna be much more common, and weaker
Again…. I do not hate the idea of Crypto for doing Online stuff, but i absolutely hate the idea of doing most day to day transactions in crypto (be that CBDC or Bitcoin) just as I hate the idea of doing everything with Bank Cards. I am not as stupid as those criminals who thought that they could trust an electronic system set up by other people (see story below)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57394831
Even CRIMINALS do not appear to know better
“I guess that when a smart kid finds a way to trick the system its the same as counterfeiting cash”
Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention has been battle tested heavily since 2009. And the underlying digital signature algorithms which protects money from being forged has been tested a lot longer. I find it safe.
“I am not as stupid as those criminals who thought that they could trust an electronic system set up by other people (see story below)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57394831”
I have known the people who have built the most used wallets since 2018 or earlier. They are typically very libertarian. I trust them. The same applies to Craig Steven Wright who I believe is Satoshi Nakamoto (based on CSW’s extremely large knowledge about everything bitcoin related), and who is also the main person behind the Bitcoin Satoshi Vision roadmap.
Steffan
“…Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention has been battle tested heavily since 2009….”
1) Can you show me a photo of the guy???
NO, because no one knows who or what he actually is or was…. I have heard theories as wild as him being Elon Musk himself
‘….And the underlying digital signature algorithms which protects money from being forged has been tested a lot longer. I find it safe….”
2) MAybe the alogrythms have held up…. but consider that to use Crypto in RealTime I will need to use SERVICES like the one you keep shilling.
How secure are THOSE?
I do not know, YOU do not know because the only time you DO know is when someone rips them off.
just like these guys found out…
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/mt-gox-bitcoin-hack-teaches-us-today
Look… I keep saying that Bitcoin and Crypto are probably WONDERFUL for INTERNET transactions, like Money Orders or whatever, they may even be OK for SOME personal transactions but the idea of using it for day to day money is stupid because
1)Its Spyware (or will be as soon as its widely adopted)
2) It requires a host of systems that are cheep and available now (In MOST places) but may not always be cheep and aviliable
3)It offers ZERO extra benefit for face to face dealing over some form of PHYSICAL cash (be that paper, gold bars, or Tally Sticks or Nukum Soda bottlecaps) …. and they can demonitize paper cash just like they they can shut down a Crypto network or make it illegal.
An Illegal Crypto (like illegal drugs) may be worth SOMETHING but are you gonna go buy a used car, off a guy you just met, with a bag of heroin?????
If I want to do internet things Crypto is GREAT… for general face to face transactions its a pair of handcuffs, however pretty they may look
“1) Can you show me a photo of the guy???”
If you watch from a computer you can see a photo on the left side of https://craigwright.net/.
“… because no one knows who or what he actually is or was …”
A lot of people and powerful organizations don’t want CSW to be Satoshi because it doesn’t fit their narrative. I am thinking of for example Bilderberg Group and MasterCard. See more on https://thatsbtcnotbitcoin.com/.
“but consider that to use Crypto in RealTime I will need to use SERVICES like the one you keep shilling.
How secure are THOSE?”
There are some good general rules to follow. Centralized exchanges (like Mount Gox) are probably more vulnerable than storing your digital coins offline, and keeping a secure backup. On the other hand, there are probably also many losses due to people not being good at keeping a backup.
For daily use you can for example have small amounts in a mobile wallet.
“2) It requires a host of systems that are cheep and available now (In MOST places) but may not always be cheep and aviliable”
I don’t see an end to Moore’s law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law) in a foreseeable future, nor for similar laws for networks and storage, so the systems needed will become cheaper and cheaper.
Steffan
“…A lot of people and powerful organizations don’t want CSW to be Satoshi because it doesn’t fit their narrative….”
IN other words… you DO NOT KNOW who actually made bitcoin, you have ideas and theories.
“…There are some good general rules to follow. Centralized exchanges (like Mount Gox) are probably more vulnerable than storing your digital coins offline, and keeping a secure backup. On the other hand, there are probably also many losses due to people not being good at keeping a backup…..”
So, as I said….you do not KNOW how secure the Services that are needed to do real time Bitcoin transfer are
“…For daily use you can for example have small amounts in a mobile wallet….”
As can, and should, anyone with any medium of exchange.
“…I don’t see an end to Moore’s law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law) in a foreseeable future, nor for similar laws for networks and storage, so the systems needed will become cheaper and cheaper….”
What has Moores Law got to do with a systems failure? Does Moores Law matter if a hurricane knocks out all the Cell Towers and power lines? All those Cheep systems also are NOT FREE… right now the Internet and start up companies are flush with loose money….how many will cheep or Free services will survive when investor money gets in short supply?
What has Moores law got to do with me needing to depend on systems and organizations that I do not control, see or even know to transfer Bitcoin in real time?
More important HOW can depending on High Tech systems and People I do not know be easier then handing over a physical piece of cash from my hand to another human hand????
Like I said, for Online Crypto is good but using it to replace physical money is putting yourself into a cage.
“you DO NOT KNOW …”
Wise decisions don’t need to be based on 100% certainty. 100% certainty is typically impossible or very expensive to acquire, so 100% certainty doesn’t make sense to aim for.
“What has Moores Law got to do with a systems failure?”
I mentioned Moore’s Law because you said ““2) It requires a host of systems that are cheep and available now (In MOST places) but may not always be cheep … “. Moore’s Law etc. will tend to make systems cheaper over time.
” Does Moores Law matter if a hurricane knocks out all the Cell Towers and power lines?”
Probably, because cheaper systems will lead to more systems. If there are more systems then it is easier to find an alternative if some Cell Towers and power lines are down. ‘All’ will probably not be down at the same time. And peer-to-peer digital cash handed from Alice to Bob who are next to each other can still work even if Bob doesn’t have an internet connection at that point in time. Bob will send Alice’s transaction to miners when he has internet again.
“how many will cheep or Free services will survive when investor money gets in short supply?”
We are living through a major digitalization era because of Moore’s Law etc. When wise investors lack money the will primarily defund the old antiquated technologies.
“What has Moores law got to do with me needing to depend on systems and organizations that I do not control, see or even know to transfer Bitcoin in real time?”
Not much, but depending on (more correctly: ‘collaborating with’, because businesses also depend on users/customers) systems and organizations that you do not control is part of the concept called ‘division of labour’. If you decide to not trust anyone then you will live in poverty and solitude, because it is nearly impossible to create much alone compared to when collaborating with others.
Steffan
“….you decide to not trust anyone then you will live in poverty and solitude,…”
You do realize that those kind of words are spoken by every conman ever don’t you??
The framing to create loss aversion and fear…that’s how it’s done 🙂
But never said I don’t trust ANYONE I said I do not trust weird internet people I do not know.
I can not help but think your shilling your service since you do not appear to get that handing physical cash to another person is 10 million times more private and secure than any system set up by people I don’t know….. also do you really really really think that you will never experience an outage of service?????
You’ve made me more suspicious of crypto then when you started since your either a paid shill OR, more charitably, your too shortsighted to see the actual dangers of a purly cryptocurrency cashless world
“I can not help but think your shilling your service since you do not appear to get that handing physical cash to another person is 10 million times more private and secure than any system set up by people I don’t know….. also do you really really really think that you will never experience an outage of service?????”
Privacy, as many other things, don’t need to be 100% for most people. Satoshi has covered privacy reasonably well. See chapter 10 of his whitepaper. Besides, there are other things than privacy that makes a money good or bad. Physical cash does not solve the inflation / money printing problem. Digital cash with a fixed money supply is much more attractive in relation to that problem.
Steffan
Without privacy and an ability to transact person to person WITH NO INTERMEDIARY (who can be shutdown by force of law) NOTHING Else matters.
At some point
A)Transfer services will be interrupted
B) “Bad” people will be banned from payment “services ” needed for real time transactions and that ban enforced by law
C)freedom will be vanish because every interaction and transaction will be on the Blockchain or on the Records of payment services.
Physical money of any kind that is carryable avoids all those issues for zero work…true “Trustless” money.
Cashless world = Bankers paradise
Please be aware that programmable money is programmed by the people who issue or own them.
Therefore a solution to tyrannical gov coins is to use good non-government money instead.
I am particularly thinking about the cheap-to-use, scalable, peer-to-peer digital cash system known as Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV). See https://www.bitcoinsv.com/. As the name suggests BSV follows the original vision of bitcoin’s inventor Satoshi Nakamoto.
I will eat your lunch and you will be happy.
– Augustin Carstens ( aka Jabba the Hutt), top banana at the BIS.
PS: If you watch the video where Jabba made the remarks quoted by Corbett above, Powell interrupted him and politely asked him to shut up. After the camera was turned off, he presumably told Carstens not to be so open about their intentions until they can confiscate most of the AR-15’s from the American populace.
Unfortunately the real bottom line is this: unless the general public quickly and purposefully organizes in order to stop this – and the rest of their many methods of control – it’s game over. Parallel economies or barter or any other attempt at a workaround will be prevented simply by the fact that anyone who refuses to participate will, at best, be forced to live on the street or in the forest. We will not be allowed to pay rent/car insurance/land tax, etc., with anything but their official currency. If you do the math, this eventuality is rationally undeniable.
Make no mistake, said purposefully organized effort could fix the problem (until the next cycle of degeneracy begins). I’d love to have an in-depth conversation with James about the details of such an effort. I’d even gladly pay him for his time.
Dreadedthread
You are NOT wrong, but the question is do YOU have 5 friends who you can trust and depend on? How many people in America have even 2 such friends?
Real social power needs to begin with real world friends, and very few people have them now. The reason so much effort is being made to add ethnic diversity to the west is that it lowers social trust and cohesion even more…thus being “Our” (as in the ruling classes) strength.
https://wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/downside-diversity
I, too, have been thinking along these lines. I have used cash (occasionally a UPSP money order, a western union payment, or a bank check) for about 25 years. (Yes, I sent cash to become a Corbett report member.)
As one who reads and believes the Bible, I have been aware of the coming “cashless society” where people will not be allowed to buy or sell unless they take “the mark,” probably since childhood. After several years of writing checks and using a charge card a few times as a young adult, for the past almost 25 years, I have dug in my heels and insisted on using cash, although it is far from ideal in that it has no intrinsic value.
More recently, I have been thinking about how this would ultimately be implemented, which brought me around to thinking about property taxes. If those can’t be paid without “the mark,” those who refuse the mark will be backed into a corner. I have taken many precautions as far as my expenses and lifestyle choices. I live very simply and have no monthly bills other than my phone bill, but property taxes are unavoidable. To benefit from my years of planning ahead, I need to be able to stay here, but if property taxes must be paid through their system, I will be stuck.
Of course restricted travel is another problem. If I can’t buy gas (without the mark) to be able to get to work, and thus can’t earn money (or work in exchange for things I need), I will also be between a rock and a hard place.
I don’t dwell on it, and I continue to work on my land as if I will be “allowed” to continue to live here (as long as I continue to pay “rent” for land I supposedly own), but I do see how this does not bode well for those who will refuse to comply.
Aaron Russo’s movie America: Freedom to Fascism came out in 2007, I believe. “They” continue to tighten the screws.
My advice: move out of states/counties with less freedom, and move into states/counties with more freedom. Especially move to locations that you know aren’t just politically more free, but have a culture of freedom already established. This will make joining an existing community and support network much easier. Or, if you choose to create a community from scratch in one of these areas, it will make that process easier and more effective. Sure, you can try establishing a community within a tyrannical hotspot, but I think it’s a better use of time to contribute to or build something in an area where the people are already looking for more freedom, not just content with the status quo.
scpat
Good Advice.
What I wish (but know wont happen) is that most people had actual ties to their community that go back over their whole life… the lack of social cohesion is whats killing freedom and while heading to pastures greener works in the short term its also part of the rootlessness that is so bad…. speaking as a somewhat rootless person who has moved around a bit here 🙂
My fear is that some people leave the ruins of where they were and then keep on voting and supporting all the things that destroyed their old abode.
I see what you are saying about the benefit of being rooted. I agree, it’s just that much “soil” has been destroyed over the years, so it might be better to start cultivating good soil somewhere that already has good soil microbes, to continue this analogy haha.
🙂
Somewhat related to this article: for those interested in coverage of the inquiry (unfortunately, no trial) of the Emergency Act use by government officials in Canada, here is a post by a website that follows it:
https://brightlightnews.com/interview-andrew-lawton-true-north-centre-talks-emergencies-act-inquiry/#respond
An excellent briefing and clear strategy for by-passing the threats of CBDCs.
Thank you. This is possibly the single most important article on the Internet today. I wish more people really understood the meaning of programmable money.
and a related page:
Today’s Central Bank Digital Currencies Status
https://cbdctracker.org/
https://bantamjoe.com/2022/11/09/u-s-digital-currency-starts-may-2023-global-cbdc-standard-goes-live/
ISO 20022 ???
”ISO 20022, the new global payment standard for governments, banks, institutions and retailers, replacing SWIFT (old standard) which goes live November 2022.”
Just for posterity:
https://www.pymnts.com/cbdc/2022/france-singapore-and-switzerland-test-cross-border-cbdc-payments/
Here’s an interesting interview with Mike Maloney, a chap that seems to talk a lot of sense, on a show that does good work. I was happy to hear this author talking about how dishonest fiat currency is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwVdaRoyP80
He also goes into the dangers of programmable currency near the end of the interview and presents some of the scary ways in which they would be able to control us, and advocates for a stable, honest and sound gold standard currency as a potential solution.
Aaaaand I probably posted too soon, only having read some scathing reviews of Stansberry Research later. Never mind, take the content of this interview at face value if you like, and don’t get sucked into any weird online schemes (duh).