The Texas policymakers have issued two new identical bills that support the creation of a state-based digital currency. The bill requires trustees to hold enough gold in reserve to sufficiently back all the units of digital currency it issued or has in circulation.
According to the news, it was understood that the majority of the US policymakers are against the creation of an American central bank digital currency (CBDC). However, some US lawmakers have reportedly issued a bill to guide the issuance of a CBDC for the United States.
Furthermore, the report showed that two different bills supporting the same stance were proposed by the lawmakers on March 10. One is Senate Bill 2334, as introduced by Senator Bryan Hughes. The second was House Bill 4903, which was proposed by Representative Mark Dorazio. According to the two bills, any trustee that possesses a particular CBDC should also have physical gold that equals the amount of CBDC it holds or has in circulation.
In addition, the bill expressed that if anyone buys a specific amount of digital currency, the controller is required to use the money received from the transaction to purchase an equal volume of gold. It continued that the buyer would then receive a volume of digital currency that equates to the quantity of physical gold that the controller bought with the buyer’s fund.
Furthermore, the bill stated that the value of the volume of digital currency should equate to the value of the physical gold obtained during the period of the transaction. Additionally, the bill required the trustee of a CBDC to reserve sufficient gold for serving as redemption or physical backup to all the digital currency that they have issued and for the ones that they have not redeemed for gold or money.
According to the proposed bill, the fee of the transaction can be marked off at any rate the regulators deem necessary to cover the cost of issuing the chapter.
As of now, none of the proposed bills have been passed by the parliament, and none have been staged for a vote at the house. However, the two bills were scheduled to take effect on September 1 this year.
Several Policymakers Negates The Proposed Bills’ Ideas
Negating the ideas of the two bills, several United States policymakers have criticized the proposal and also shown their belief against the issuance of a United States central bank digital currency.
In a press meeting on March 20, Governor Ron DeSaints of Florida revealed his take on the proposed CBDC. He said that if the United States should make the central bank digital currency, the government would have more power over its citizens who are consumers. In addition, he said that the CBDC would give the government unrestricted access to all CBDC users’ transactions, which he termed as a violation of privacy.
Furthermore, to aid the anti-CBDC movement, Republican Senator Ted Cruz proposed a bill on March 21. In his account, he utterly refutes the government from issuing a CBDC that has a direct-to-consumer function. He supported his view by stating that it is paramount to make sure that the American policy on digital currencies is laser-focused on protecting consumers’ financial privacy. He added that the country’s policies should encourage innovations as well as maintain the dominance of the dollar over other currencies.
