WASHINGTON—Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has maintained an openly critical stance toward central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), warning that such a financial infrastructure could increase governments' ability to monitor or restrict citizens' transactions.
During his presidential campaign, Kennedy championed
decentralized cryptocurrencies and asserted that a U.S. CBDC could pose a
threat to financial privacy and individual liberties. In 2024, he even promised
that, had he been elected president, he would prevent the creation of a central
bank digital currency in the United States.
His statements have once again been used on social media to
spread messages about "digital slavery" linked to digital identity
and CBDCs. Some of these posts claim that Kennedy revealed a secret plan by
which citizens could lose their financial resources and even be unable to feed
their families.
The concern expressed by the US politician relates to the
power that could be concentrated in a digital currency issued and managed by a
central bank. Specifically, Kennedy has argued that such a system could
facilitate the oversight of financial operations and, depending on its design,
increase the authorities' ability to intervene in transactions.
Moreover, in the United States, the current situation runs
counter to the idea that a federal CBDC is about to be implemented. In January
2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order establishing measures
to prevent the creation, issuance, circulation, and use of a US CBDC.
The fundamental question remains: how can we ensure that the
digitization of money does not ultimately reduce citizens' privacy and
financial freedom?