For example: in Canada, the bank accounts of those who protested were literally frozen (for simply speaking out or being critical) and talks of potential CBDCs (aka. used to deduct funds from one's account as a fine) whilst considering on abolishing cash altogether.
The alternative (for now at least) may be Crypto (online) until they consider that "illegal" in the future penalizing those who are using it, framing that as money laundering or tax evasion, whilst pushing their propaganda of "tap & go is safe & convenient".
The answers are divided between:
- "Cash is King" (it allows anonymous or "private" transactions between you and the merchant)
- "Contactless" (convenient, but your purchases & transactions are monitored by the state)
Cash is apparently the last bastion of "anonymous" transactions where it doesn't appear on one's statement and one gets to keep their money without the state deducting it from their account since a nation's central bank has monopoly over CBDCs and one's funds.
That's not even the end of it: them trying to make BTC or equivalent illegal by making CBDCs the default replacing gold overnight, it would mean all those bills you have are worthless. At this point, the only payment method is CBDCs that are linked to one's digital ID.
If I get cash in change from a vendor who doesn’t know my identity, and spend it at another vendor who doesn’t know my identity, what is there to tie the serial numbers to?
Nothing, they're blowing it out of proportion.
However, if you put them into a banking machine or deposit in your bank, then serial tracking can become something you should at least be aware of.
Some of your bills in your pocket may come from the vendor A, some may come from an ATM. So the bank knows some of the bills you got.
Vendor B might go shopping somewhere, or deposit his cash in a bank. Or put it in a sorting machine that scans the serial numbers.
You pay B with some bills from A and some bills from the ATM. And now the bank can connect all three dots. The transactions aren't completely transparent, but aren't truly anonymous anymore.
At best, B’s bank knows that B had some bills that once passed through your hands. But they have no way of knowing if you actually spent the money at B’s or if there were other transactions in between.