DeSantis's New Batshit Law, Explained

Plus, Revolut's numbers get even harder to swallow.

Number of the Week: $44 billion (explanation below)

Ron DeSantis’s Batshit New CBDC Law, Explained

For months, Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis has demonized the concept of a central-bank controlled digital currency (CBDC). His argument is that the US Federal Reserve Bank is on the cusp of issuing a CBDC which, he asserts, will be used to electronically control Americans’ spending. If you, say, go to buy a gun, DeSantis claims that the government will or could use CBDC to zap away your purchase. This week, DeSantis signed into law a sweeping “first-in-the-nation” prohibition against “the use of a federally adopted central bank digital currency (CBDC) by excluding it from the definition of money within Florida’s Uniform Commercial Code.”

There can’t be much precedent for a US state launching a pre-emptive strike against a federally-issued monetary instrument that doesn’t…you know…exist? Further in its anticipatory power, the law “prohibits foreign-issued CBDC, to protect consumers against globalist efforts to adopt a worldwide digital currency.” Breathe easy, grateful Floridians!

On the surface, DeSantis’s assault on digital currency is at odds with the national GOP posture on cryptocurrency. (It’s also logically and legally batshit, but more on that below.)