If you followed my research on banking and the reality of the Russian sanction regime, this report from Reuters today takes on an entirely new dimension.
ME: …”The same way the Patriot Act was not designed to stop terrorism but rather to create a domestic surveillance system. So too were the “Russian Sanctions” not designed to sanction Russia, but rather to create the financial control system that will lead to a USA digital currency. The Western sanctions created a financial wall around the USA (dollar-based west), not to keep Russia out, but to keep us in. The Western sanction regime, the financial mechanisms they created and authorized, created the control gate that leads to a U.S. digital currency.” (more)
REUTERS TODAY: …”The firm [SWIFT] has gone from being virtually unknown outside banking circles to a household name since 2022 when it cut most of Russia’s banks off from its network as part of the West’s sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine. (more)
[The map shows the global financial cleaving, an outcome of sanctions against Russia]
I first started to deep dive research into these CBDC datapoints when the Russian sanctions were triggered.
You see, nothing about the sanctions really made sense from the way they were structured. Never before, not with Iran, North Korea, Venezuela or Cuba was the dollar weaponized against any entity who did not conform to the sanctions. Additionally, the intensity of the drive to make the sanctions the tip of the Western spear was just too pointed; something about it didn’t make sense. That’s what took me to dig deep into the sanction impact and realize nothing said about these financial sanctions made sense when compared against their actual outcome. {Go Deep}.
So, let’s start with the latest development:
(Reuters) – Global bank messaging network SWIFT is planning a new platform in the next one to two years to connect the wave of central bank digital currencies now in development to the existing finance system, it has told Reuters.
The move, which would be one of the most significant yet for the nascent CBDC ecosystem given SWIFT’s key role in global banking, is likely to be fine-tuned to when the first major ones are launched.
Around 90% of the world’s central banks are now exploring digital versions of their currencies. Most don’t want to be left behind by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but are grappling with technological complexities.
SWIFT’s head of innovation, Nick Kerigan, said its latest trial, which took 6 months and involved a 38-member group of central banks, commercial banks and settlement platforms, had been one of the largest global collaborations on CBDCs and “tokenised” assets to date.