A blockchain developer by the name of Pedro Magalhaes, founder of the Web3 consulting firm Iora Labs, reverse-engineered the code behind Brazil's CBDC program, which led him to this shocking discovery.
Magalhaes was able to access the Application Programming Interface via the monetary authority on its Github account. And thus far, the Brazilian government has failed to offer any kind of explanation or response about the discovery.
"They tend to keep things closed off and usually don't communicate with non-bankers," Magalhaes told Decrypt, clarifying that he has had a few general discussions about CBDC implementation on the Github platform.
"Honestly, they don't even need to care about public opinion."
What Magalhaes means by this, of course, is that the Brazilian government answers to nobody in a digital finance paradigm like the CBDC. It can do whatever it wants, in essence, and the Brazilian people cannot say or do anything to stop it, otherwise their accounts could get shut off and their money deleted.
(Related: Australia recently launched its own CBDC pilot program, complete with carbon credit trading.)
Brazilian media reporter confirms Brazilian government controls people's individual CBDC accounts
A Brazilian crypto news reporter by the name of Vini Barbosa, who writes for Portal Do Bitcoin, confirmed that Magalhaes' findings are, indeed, correct, which is ominous for the future of CBDC implementation everywhere.
"The ability to 'freeze or arrest amounts' held in [this system] is protected by current legislation in Brazil, according to the Central Bank," Barbosa tweeted about the matter.
The first public notice about all this was shared via Magalhaes' LinkedIn account with the disclaimer that it was simply for "educational purposes." At first, it was believed that the backdoor functions only applied to DeFi or CeFi "where it may be necessary to freeze the balances to complete a smart contract operation," but we have since learned that Brazil's central bank can perform these backdoor tasks any time it wishes, for no reason at all.
Because of Brazil's torrid financial history, the Brazilian people are scared about the discovery. After all, back in the 1990s, the country's then-president froze finances for the entire country's population for 18 straight months.
The only way the Brazilian people can even attempt to fight back against this latest affront to their finances is to protest it on social media, according to Magalhaes.
"They will try hard to adopt it, and they have the power to do it," the expert in Ethereum's Solidity programming language said.
"As a blockchain developer, the only thing I've been asking for is: please, provide public smart contracts and let Brazilians know what the Central Bank is doing."
On Twitter, someone responded to Barbosa's confirmation of Magalhaes' findings by speculating as to how long it will be before the backdoor scheme is used by the government to punish citizens for committing acts of "hate speech" or other "hate crimes."
"These are scary times," this person wrote.
Barbosa responded to this concern by stating that he, too, fears such an outcome, which is why he is "glad that we already have functional alternatives to money that can be used globally," referring to other independent cryptocurrencies.
"I foresee in the next agenda they will introduce law forcing its citizens to use CBDC and remove cash," wrote another about what he sees as the next phase in this war on cash by the private central bankers.
Before CBDCs can take over finance, the dollar has to collapse. Learn more at DollarDemise.com.
Sources for this article include:
Please contact us for more information.
