In 1971, a group of government-connected thinkers met at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

If you’ve never heard of the CSIS, I can’t blame you. You and I would never get an invitation to such an exclusive club.

The center conducts policy studies and strategic analyses of political, economic, and security issues throughout the world. And its members are a “who’s who” of the U.S. political and financial establishment.

Current CSIS board members include former House Speaker Paul Ryan, billionaire investor Ray Dalio, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Past members have included former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and current Secretary of State Antony Blinken. And every president since Richard Nixon has spoken to this club.

So when the CSIS conducts a “war games” type study, it’s a big deal. And one closely monitored by the political elite.

That’s exactly what happened in its 1971 meeting.

Over two days in October 1971, the CSIS “war gamed” the following scenario.

Imagine you’re the KGB. You want to better monitor the population of the Soviet Union. But it has to be as unobtrusive as possible.

How do you go about it?

The answer it came up with didn’t involve more wiretaps, secret informants, or gulags. Rather, it looked at a technology that the U.S. was just starting to roll out.

I’m talking about credit card networks.

Credit card payments, unlike their cash or check counterparts, provide real-time monetary transactional data.

Credit card networks show who’s making a purchase, the location of the purchase, and how much money they’re spending.

A country’s ability to collect that data and monitor it in real time could make surveillance much easier.

Unusual transactions could be immediately flagged for a deeper investigation… And it wouldn’t be an obvious source of intrusion.

At its extreme, if everyone in the Soviet Union moved to a credit card system controlled by the government, then it could monitor every transaction in real time. The notorious black markets in the country operating with cash could become a thing of the past.

The Soviets never built that technology. The totalitarian regime dissolved on December 26, 1991 – exactly 20 years after the CSIS financial war game.

But that level of financial surveillance ended up as the reality for the U.S. today.

You see, this CSIS war game exercise came to light in a speech made by Paul Armer – former director of the Stanford University Computation Center – in June 1975.

At a time when computer networks were coming into play, Armer made some uncannily accurate predictions.

Armer ran the university’s computer center, which rented out computer time to businesses. But he saw a day coming when computers would be in every home – and a microchip would likely be in every electronic gadget.

Here’s what Armer had to say about the CSIS’s unobtrusive money surveillance solution:

Suppose that you have gotten into the habit of using the system because, one, it is convenient; and two, it may be cheaper than other payment mechanisms. Now comes an instance in which you want privacy and decide to use cash. If you have to obtain the cash from the… system, that cash transaction will stand out like a sore thumb. The point here is that it’s not enough just to have the option of using cash; the cash option must be used frequently, or it becomes useless as a means for privacy.

Armer’s quote rings even truer today.

Friends, that level of surveillance is here today in the U.S.

Every time you swipe a credit card at a store, it tracks your location. The only difference is that it goes to the database at Visa or American Express, which are private companies… not the government.

But even that’s changing and heading toward government control…

Last month, the U.S. government launched a new payments network of its own. And while it doesn’t track every transaction yet, it has the ability to do so.

As you know, we firmly believe the government intends to launch a digital dollar in an attempt to track, trace, and control every penny of your spending.

Today, I’ll go over the new government payment network and how you can protect your financial privacy.

Plus, I’ll reveal how you could potentially make 100x from a new subsector of the crypto market that’s completely off the radar.

FedNow Has Arrived

The Federal Reserve launched FedNow – its new payment network – on July 20.

The network allows for faster clearing times at banks. It eliminates the time it takes to wait for checks or wire transfers to clear – a process that usually takes days, sometimes up to a week.

Right now, the launch is still in its early stages. The Fed noted on day one of the launch, 35 banks and credit unions – including JPMorgan Chase, BNY Mellon, and U.S. Bank – are using FedNow. And part of the U.S. Treasury is testing it out.

Other countries such as Brazil and the nations of the European Union already have this real-time payment processing capability.

So the Fed is naturally playing up the angle that this technology makes the financial system more efficient – and helps the U.S. catch up to the rest of the world.

But this service also makes real-time tracking of financial data possible.

Yes, instant payments are an improvement. But the flip side is the higher surveillance potential by the government. Real-time digital transactions require a ledger that can track every transaction.

That’s why it’s so threatening to your financial liberty. It sounds like something out of the CSIS war game for how the KGB could theoretically expand its powers without citizens detecting it.

To be clear, FedNow isn’t the same as a central bank digital currency (CBDC)… yet. But it does take us a step closer to a digital dollar.

That’s because a digital currency needs to be able to settle transactions instantly… and that’s exactly what FedNow allows.

It’s imperative to your financial security that you take steps now before the government mandates the use of its digital dollar.

One way to do this is with bitcoin (BTC).

While the dollar is centralized and controlled by the Fed via interest rates and bond buying programs, bitcoin is decentralized. Nobody has the computing power to control the bitcoin network and make changes to it – any changes have to be voluntary.

Given how the dollar and bitcoin are managed in totally different ways, it makes sense to diversify out of the dollar with bitcoin. But bitcoin isn’t the only crypto that offers an escape hatch from FedNow.

Cryptocurrencies are getting ready for their next explosive move higher. And while it will start with bitcoin, it will reverberate throughout the entire crypto ecosystem.

And we’ve found a tiny niche market that will benefit from it…

A New Catalyst for Cryptos

I don’t know when the United States will roll out a digital dollar. But FedNow takes us a step closer to that rollout.

But with every challenge comes opportunity…

That’s why Daily editor Teeka Tiwari recently put together a new playbook to show you how to profit from the potential rollout of a digital dollar.

The playbook includes the name of a crypto project that could move the needle on your net worth.

Because this single idea would give you direct exposure to the blockchain technology designed for CBDCs.

And you can get started with less than a quarter. That means that if it jumps by just 25 cents, you’d more than double your money.

The launch of FedNow is something every American should pay attention to. But while it’s a threat to your financial privacy… It’s providing a catalyst for certain crypto projects.

And that’s the beauty of crypto. While you can use bitcoin to move a portion of your wealth outside of the traditional financial system… You could potentially move the needle on your net worth by buying coins that give you exposure to CBDCs.

Regards,

Andrew Packer
Analyst, Palm Beach Daily