Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill restricting the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in the state, according to local news sources. The governor urged state lawmakers in March to draft the bill.
The new law prohibits the use of a United States federal CBDC “as money within Florida’s Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).” It also bans the use of CBDCs issued by foreign governments and calls on other states to use their commercial codes to institute similar prohibitions.
At the signing ceremony for the bill, DeSantis said he was spurred into action by U.S. President Joe Biden administration’s studies of the new financial technology. The United States does not have a CBDC and there is no current plans to introduce one.
DESANTIS ANTI CBDC BILL JUST PASSED THE HOUSE & SENATEI brought a select few of our members up to Floridas Capitol to meet with The Governors Team The Chief Financial Officers teamThe Office of Financial Regulation The anti-CBDC Bill Sponsors In order for us to push… pic.twitter.com/vnMQxxVoUF
“I don’t think they would have done that if they don’t intend on implementing this,” he said. Were a U.S. CBDC to be issued, it would be “a massive transfer of power from consumers to a central authority.”
DeSantis also saw the potential introduction of a CBDC as a threat to cryptocurrency:
The bill the governor signed introduced changes to the state’s currency commercial code. “You started to have a movement among the states to actually add CBDC to their Uniform Commercial Codes and this is something that was pushed by a lot of powers that be to do that,” he said, in an apparent reference to the proposed Article 12 of the UCC now before state legislatures. DeSantis added:
The Uniform Law Commission has taken
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