Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Bans CBDCs in the State

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Friday banning the use of a "centralized digital dollar," otherwise known as a central bank digital currency or CBDC, in the state.

DeSantis has been relentless in his attacks on a CBDCs, saying last week that they were part of "woke politics" that he wants to combat. Now the portion of Florida law that defines money explicitly notes: "The term does not include a central bank digital currency."

During the press conference, DeSantis posited that President Joe Biden's administration announced it would be studying CBDCs last year because it wants to "crowd out and eliminate other types of digital assets, like cryptocurrency."

While standing behind a podium that said "Big Brother's Digital Dollar," DeSantis suggested the government might hypothetically use CBDCs to stop people from buying gas to combat global warming or track how often someone purchases firearms.

"Anyone with their eyes open could see the danger this type of an arrangement would mean for Americans who want to exercise their financial independence and would like to be able to conduct business without having the government know every single transaction they're making in real time."

The bill, SB-7054, had only one vote cast against it in its final appearance during a Florida House of Representatives session last week. When DeSantis introduced the legislation in March, he said that a CBDC would be about "surveilling Americans and controlling Americans."

A few days later, DeSantis announced that Florida would accept Bitcoin as payment for state taxes—but only from businesses, not individual tax payers.

Although he hasn't announced his candidacy yet, but DeSantis has been leading polls for potential Republican Party nominees and recently released a book laying out his stance against what he calls "woke" politics.