Digital Toilet Paper

The Bank of England calls its proposal for a digital pound a leap into the future. The question is what kind of future?

The Bank assures us that the digital pound would be “denominated in sterling and its value would be stable, just like banknotes.” However, it went off gold in 1931, the pound has lost something like 99 per cent of its value. Rather than turning it into ones and zeros, the bank might think more about fixing it against some external standard – gold, for example – and then promising to pay on demand.

Beyond the dubious economic merits, the digital pound paves the way for further government surveillance and control. The Bank claims that “neither the Bank of England nor the Government would be able to control how you spend your money.” Yet, the infrastructure of a centralised digital currency enables authorities to monitor every transaction, and impose spending restrictions, and even freeze accounts at will.

Imagine a future where your ability to purchase certain items is curtailed because they’ve been deemed undesirable by those in power. Today, it will be cigarettes; tomorrow, dissident literature. A digital pound will be another tool for enforcing conformity and suppressing dissent.

The Bank insists that the digital pound “would not replace cash” and that it “will continue to issue it for as long as people want to keep using it.” But as digital payments become the norm, cash usage will inevitably dwindle, leading to its eventual obsolescence. Once cash is gone, we’ll be entirely at the mercy of a system that monitors and controls every penny we spend.

The Bank argues that a digital pound would “help us maintain trust in money and protect our financial system, while also improving payments by increasing efficiency and enabling innovation.” Yet, our current payment systems are already efficient and reliable. The digital pound appears to be a solution in search of a problem, with the obvious and intended costs to our privacy and freedom outweighing any minor conveniences.

The digital pound is being marketed as a modern necessity. In reality, it’s an excuse for a dystopian level of surveillance and control under the guise of progress. Then again, what else is to be expected?