In March, Daisy wrote about FedNow, the instant payment system currently in the works/ The American banking and government systems expect to start using it in July. As Daisy discussed, FedNow isn’t a centralized bank digital currency (CBDC), but it provides the framework for one.
I encourage you to read Daisy’s FedNow article. It will give you a good idea of how digital payments will be initially billed as a convenience, then something we can’t do business without. Read the article, and then imagine digital currency on a global scale.
This is in the works, too.
Worldwide digital currency
On April 10, the Digital Currency Monetary Authority (DCMA) launched its international central bank digital currency. Proponents claim that this Universal Monetary Unit (UMU, Ü) will be used exactly like any other form of digital money.
Side note: DCMA has also been referring to the Universal Money Units as Unicoin. However, since there is a separate cryptocurrency also going by the name “Unicoin,” we’ll refer to this as UMU. (source)
You may be wondering, what is the DCMA? What countries is it affiliated with? Is it part of the United Nations?
As explained in this Redacted video, DCMA is run by bankers and unnamed government officials from around the world.
The DCMA is described as “a world leader in the advocacy of digital currency and monetary policy innovations for governments and central banks. Membership within the DCMA consists of sovereign states, central banks, commercial and retail banks, and other financial institutions.”
On its website, the DCMA states that its mission “is to enable trade globalization through the monetary integration of international payments and settlements while strengthening national economies [sic] monetary sovereignty. The first wave of cryptographic cash was designed for public untrusted networks. The DMCA reimagines the next wave of cryptographic innovations engineered for adoption by central banks, retail and commercial banks, Fintech, governments, and cryptocurrency exchanges.”
Here’s what makes UMU Unicoin different
UMU’s big advantage, what makes this different from individual countries’ proposed CBDCs, is that it can be used for cross-border transfers of money. Offering UMU users discounted foreign exchange rates is part of the plan to encourage adoption. International Monetary Fund (IMF) representatives claim that right now, exchanging currencies between different nations slows down transactions and increases the cost of doing business; they claim that UMU will dramatically speed things up. Like FedNow, they are using the convenience of instant payments, coupled with the promise of the best foreign exchange rates, as a method of promoting this new payment framework.
As of January, 114 countries, representing over 95% of the world’s economy, are exploring CBDCs, and a few have already rolled them out. However, as BeInCrypto noted, the rollouts haven’t gone particularly smoothly, which makes this rollout of a global crypto framework linked to the international banking system somewhat surprising.
Here’s what happened when the Nigerian government tried to force the issue.
China’s use of the digital yuan to enforce its rigid social credit system is well known. However, we can also look to Nigeria to see what can happen when governments attempt to impose CBDCs on the population.
In 2021, Nigeria became the first African country to implement a CBDC, the eNaira. Nigeria struggles a great deal with terrorism and counterfeiting operations; CBDC cheerleaders claimed that switching to digital currency would address some of these problems. Since 35% of Nigerians use cryptocurrencies, government officials assumed that Nigerians would hop right into a CBDC system.
They were wrong.
35% of Nigerians may be comfortable with crypto, but less than 0.5% signed up for the government-issued eNaira. The ones that did download it gave it lousy ratings. No one really wanted it; many vendors wouldn’t accept it.
So, the Nigerian government tried forcing everyone to use it. They restricted cash withdrawals to about US $44 a day or no more than about US $217 a week.
Authorities hoped that this would force people onto the CBDC. Instead, it resulted in chaos. A tremendous cash shortage ensued, and some governors claimed their territories were “on the verge of anarchy.”
Since then, the Nigerian government has slowed down its rush to become a cashless society. They had originally planned to be totally cashless by January. This did not work, and people will be able to use their bank notes until the end of 2023. (source)
No one would call this an inspiring success. But no one seems to want to change courses, either.
Sweden is NOT actually a cashless society.
Mainstream media continually holds Sweden up as an example of a wealthy, functional cashless society, but this is disingenuous. Sweden’s not actually cashless. Yes, most Swedes choose not to use cash, but the government has actually passed laws saying that it has to be available. Why? Because the Swedish government, quite sensibly, admits that digital money is vulnerable to disruption, whether through natural disasters that disrupt the grid or something like an EMP. They know that they need backup currency in case of emergency. (source)
Sweden is investigating CBDCs, just like everyone else. We’ll see where they land. Interestingly enough, their mostly-cashless society is being sold on digital currency for the same reason the Africans are: the ease of cross-border payments. The Swedes have been functioning mostly without cash but also without a CBDC. So why would they want an e-krona? To make international trade easier, and that brings us right back to the UMU.
Things are not going well in the financial world.
Patterns are emerging. Failures abound. Fox just fired its most popular host. Anheuser-Busch slapped its working-class customer base in the face with its hiring of TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney as a promoter. It’s cost the company at least $5 billion.
And then the bank failures! Three out of the four biggest bank failures in American history have occurred in the last two months. Daisy wrote about First Republic failing on Monday. Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank both failed in March. As of Tuesday, several other regional banks started to collapse, as reported by ZeroHedge.
When small businesses go under, bigger establishments win. J.P. Morgan Chase is now the biggest bank in the U.S. As there are fewer and fewer banks to negotiate, implementing new rules (like CBDC) becomes easier because fewer entities need to agree.
The bank bailouts of the past 15 years have been rewarding poor investment decisions and destabilizing the financial system, as explained by Peter Schiff.
We’re at the beginning of another round of crashes, but what is the financial sector doing? As of May 1, the Biden administration will be slapping those with high credit scores with additional mortgage fees to subsidize home loans for people with poor credit. We had a collapse in 2008; it looks like we’re at the beginning of another crash.
And yet we insist on incentivizing poor lending behavior.
Businesses are making poor decisions left and right, seemingly heedless of consequences. Those trying just to make money are being hampered by ESG and CEI scores. It’s like there’s a conscious effort to destroy business as usual.
The more time goes by, the more I suspect that’s the point. As Daisy noted in the FedNow article, widespread bank failures will make people desperate, and desperate people become willing to sign on for “solutions” like CBDCs that they otherwise may not have.
Is this the road to global governance?
Once CBDCs are common among nations, UMU will follow. And UMU will greatly facilitate global governance.
This probably sounds crazier than it should, but we’ve been sleepwalking toward global governance lately. Look at the WHO’s most recent treaty. If this gets ratified, which is very likely, all signers will have given sweeping powers to a huge, unelected group of global bureaucrats. Global currency is just another nail in the global governance coffin.
I don’t think this will happen overnight. I agree with Rebel Capitalist’s recent assessment that this will be a process. Getting everyone onboard with a CBDC will take time, particularly if governments want to avoid social disruption. Nigerians were stripping their clothes off and smashing bank machinery in protest when they couldn’t get cash. I imagine American bank owners would prefer to avoid that.
Adding a global layer of infrastructure is that much more work. But just because it’s five years down the road doesn’t mean we should ignore what’s going on right now. Frameworks are being put in place that, in a perfect world, could conceivably lead to streamlined international business. But we don’t live in a perfect world.
Between Covid, and the Afghanistan debacle, and the widespread dysfunction within the business community, I don’t think it’s far-fetched for anyone to harbor serious concerns about the competence and motives of those in power.
CBDCs are a danger to freedom.
The frameworks being constructed will enable a level of surveillance and control that past dictators could only dream about. We need to call it what it is and do what we can to delay implementation. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Senator Ted Cruz are both calling for CBDC bans. I don’t live in Texas or Florida, but I applaud those politicians for speaking out about it
Most of us probably need to educate friends and relatives about CBDC, too. I’ve been shocked at how many people have no idea that this is in the works. Advertisements for instant payments are all over the place; if most people had better spending habits, this wouldn’t be anywhere near as appealing. If you have teenagers and young adults in your house, talk about finances with them. Solid budgeting skills make instant payments unnecessary. Make the youngsters in your life aware of the costs of constantly doing whatever is most convenient.
Unfortunately, I agree with Daisy in that this is probably going to happen regardless of what we do. However, we can still do our best to starve the beast by minimizing our digital footprints and doing as much as we can on our own or within a trusted network of friends. We don’t have to stumble into the New World Order blindly. We can be difficult.
Two years ago, there was a widespread push to mandate certain medical treatments across the workforce. People stalled, argued, and filed lawsuits. Mandates started going away, and just this month, the U.S. is finally ending its vaccine requirement for foreign travelers.
Do I think this is a permanent reprieve? Oh no. I think medical passports will come back in some other form, for some other disease. My point is simply that dragging our collective feet might buy us a little time.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant for government policies as well as laundry. By spreading awareness about the CBDC and UMU frameworks being put in place, hopefully, we can slow the adoption of these massive surveillance tools.
What are your thoughts?
Do you think UniCoin or Universal Monetary Unit is part of the plan to institute one global currency? Do you think this will move the world further toward digital currencies and cashless societies? What potential problems do you see with that, if any?
Let’s talk about it in the comments.
About Marie Hawthorne
A lover of novels and cultivator of superb apple pie recipes, Marie spends her free time writing about the world around her. Article cross-posted from The Organic Prepper.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
