North Carolina’s General Assembly on Wednesday passed a bill restricting the state’s government from using and accepting a Federal Reserve-issued central bank digital currency (CBDC).
House Bill 690 now heads to Governor Roy Cooper for approval after the state’s House passed the bill a 109-4 vote on June 26, a day after the Senate passed the bill in a 39-5 vote.
If Cooper signs the bill into law, it would immediately bar the state’s agencies and courts from accepting “payment using central bank digital currency.”
It would also ban them from participating in CBDC tests “by any Federal Reserve branch.”
The bill’s passing comes the same week Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a similar bill that banned the state’s government from accepting or participating in a CBDC.
Louisiana’s bill also included a provision that ensured a right to self-custody crypto.
The North Carolina bill’s wide support means if Cooper decides to veto, it could easily be overridden as it has support from over three-fifths of lawmakers in both chambers.
Cooper’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his plan for the bill.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said at a federal Senate Banking Committee hearing in March that the U.S. was “nowhere near recommending or let alone adopting a central bank digital currency in any form.”
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Despite that, the U.S. House passed a bill last month to ban the Fed from offering a CBDC, which now heads to the Senate.
A June 14 Bank for International Settlements (BIS) poll found 94% of surveyed central banks are exploring a CBDC, with the organization saying it’d seen a “sharp uptick” in wholesale CBDC experiments and pilots.
The BIS said that in the next six years, a central bank is more likely to issue a wholesale CBDC than a retail CBDC — the latter being for everyday users.
However, it added that “many CBDC features are still undecided.”
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