by Joseph P. Farrell, Giza Death Star:
This story was shared by one of our regular readers who wishes to remain completely anonymous, so our thanks go out to “X” for spotting and sharing it.
As the blog headline notes, it concerns the test of a central bank digital currency across international borders, which is a significant enough event to blog about in and of itself. What the headline is not telling you is that the Bank of International Sleaze Settlements was involved in the test.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
But while reading this article, it occurred to me that there might be another story lurking in between the lines, and perhaps even in the whole drive to “go cashless”, and that constitutes my high octane speculation of the day. Indeed, my high octane speculation is so high octane it may me completely absurd, in which case we can all have a laugh at my stupidity, and move along. Anyway, here’s the article:
France Tests CBDC Cross-Border Payments with Singapore and Switzerland
Now, before we get into this article a bit, let’s remember all the hype about “crypto-currencies” that accompanied their emergence along with the blockchain “distributed ledgers” that supposedly make the whole thing work, and that hype was all about how the whole phenomenon was going to do an “end run” around central banks and their currency monopolies, and a bright but not really gold-backed future awaited us all because of the genius of that Japanese guy who allegedly came up with all of this. They added that business about some sort of bullion backing to the narrative a little later to make the whole scheme seem even better.
But here we are, watching the central banks of France, Switzerland, and Singapore doing a digital currency test run across international border, with the Bank of International Sleaze Settlements hovering on the periphery, plotting whatever it is plotting, and rest assured, it’s plotting something, because… well, did I mention that Hjalmar Schacht was one of its founders? Yea, you remember him, Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler’s Reichsbank president, and a fellow who seems to pop up in every wacky post-war context involving Nazis.
Well anyway, here’s the article’s main points:
Project Mariana, a collaborative effort involving the Banque de France, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Swiss National Bank, in coordination with the BIS (Bank for International Settlements), has conducted experiments. These experiments revolved around testing the cross-border trading and settlement of hypothetical CBDCs denominated in euros, Singapore dollars, and Swiss francs. Besides, these simulations involved financial institutions and leveraged decentralized finance (DeFi) technology concepts on a public blockchain.
The innovative concept relies on a standardized token format on a public blockchain, and bridge mechanisms to facilitate seamless CBDC transfers across different networks. It also has a specific type of decentralized exchange for the automated execution of spot foreign exchange transactions.
A little later we read this:
Earlier this month, SWIFT, the widely-used bank messaging platform that links more than 11,500 financial institutions globally, has disclosed that three banks are now part of the beta phase for its CBDC interoperability initiative.
Now you’ll have noticed a careful omission here… actually, two omissions, and the latter one bears directly upon my wild wacky so-far-out-there-it’s-in-orbit speculation of the day. The first omission has to do with that all important issue of convertibility: once the digital blips have crossed the virtual borders between France, Singapore, and Switzerland, can those blips be exchanged for the actual physical local currency? Without that, then the system is, as I’ve averred so many times, is nothing but a ticket to direct and immediate feudalism and serfdom. No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. With convertibility, the system as the article is outlining it appears to be something very different. The one currency not being mentioned is, of course, the American dollar. Now imagine the following scenario: imagine a financial clearing system that is able to deal internationally and do so in several currencies, and imagine this system is a distributed system, and not routing transactions through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transfer in Brussels (SWIFT). Imagine the Bank of France being able to dial up the Singapore Monetary Authority and transfer fund directly. As regular readers here are aware, the SWIFT system is one of the mechanisms of American global financial and economic hegemony, because “economic sanctions”, such as against Russia for example, are put into practical effect by denying access to the SWIFT system of international clearing.
