CBDCs are a form of permissioned money that allows the issuer to control who, how and when that money can be used. Governments already have many ways to use access to bank deposits as a means of social control, for example to implement a lockdown.

Governments can use CBDCs to weaponise currency even further. The key is to control the public’s access to alternative payments media: forcing them to use a suitably weaponised CBDC would then give the central bank total control over all purchases made by everyone. The governing elite would then be able to punish at will those of whom it disapproved and impose their own agendas without being held accountable for how they exercise the arbitrary power that CBDCs give them. The resulting scope for social control has the potential to go well beyond the tyranny achievable by existing Chinese-style social credit systems.