‘Massive Threat’: DeSantis Says Centralized Digital Currencies Open Door To ‘Social Credit System’

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida told Tucker Carlson Friday that certain digital currencies make a “social credit system” possible and posed a “massive threat” to liberty.

The White House promoted a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in September 2022, while criticizing private digital currencies like Bitcoin. Critics of CBDCs say it opens the door to more government control over citizens.

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“They want to get rid of cash, they want no crypto currency and they want this to be the sole form of legal tender, and they have said this publicly like at Davos and these other places. It will allow them to prohibit quote ‘undesirable purchases like fuel, oh and ‘ammunition,’ and so the minute you give them the power to do this, they are gonna impose a social credit system on this country,” DeSantis told Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and Daily Caller News Foundation. “CBDC is a massive threat to American liberty.”

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts expressed support for a CBDC in June 2021, claiming that Bitcoin mining was one of the largest energy users in the world.

“Legitimate digital public money could help drive out bogus digital private money,” Warren said.

DeSantis signed legislation May 2 that prohibited state agencies and local governments from considering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors when issuing bonds, barred banks from considering “social credit” when making loan decisions and prohibited discrimination on the basis of political, social or religious ideology.

“On January 20th, 2025, it goes to the ash heap of history in this country,” DeSantis said about the CBDC.