{"id":632156,"date":"2026-03-06T09:01:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T07:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=632156"},"modified":"2026-03-06T09:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T07:02:14","slug":"dawie-roodt-sends-warning-about-digital-rand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cryptocurrency\/632156-dawie-roodt-sends-warning-about-digital-rand.html","title":{"rendered":"Dawie Roodt sends warning about digital Rand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt has warned that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could become a powerful tool for authoritarian control, while private-sector stablecoins offer a necessary counterbalance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roodt explained that a CBDC is, by definition, a programmable currency, meaning whoever controls it can manipulate what individuals do with their money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They could reduce or increase the value of the wallet that is on your cellphone,” Roodt said at the conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He outlined several ways a government could abuse a programmable CBDC, including restricting purchases of specific goods, confiscating portions of a person’s funds, or shaping consumption patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CBDC would also make personal finances fully transparent to the issuing authority, making tax evasion or avoidance impossible and giving the state detailed insight into every transaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roodt acknowledged that he was describing an extreme scenario and that, in practice, CBDCs would likely include safeguards and offer certain advantages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But theoretically it is certainly possible that a central bank digital currency could be a very dangerous weapon in the hands of a dictator,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roodt shared his views at the Future of the Nations 2026<\/em> conference hosted by Lex Libertas, elaborating on remarks he made during a budget presentation in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had warned at that presentation that dollar-pegged stablecoins with lower transaction costs could eventually displace the South African rand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has been actively exploring a CBDC since May 2021, when it launched a feasibility study into a general-purpose retail digital currency complementary to cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SARB concluded the first phase of that study towards the end of 2022 but decided not to publish its detailed findings, saying they required significantly more work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has since launched Project Khokha 2x, which focuses on wholesale CBDCs and stablecoins, and continues to explore possible use cases for digitised money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original Project Khokha (PK) was a 14-week trial that demonstrated a blockchain-based system for interbank settlements. PK2 focused on tokenisation, exploring the settlement of SARB debentures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stablecoins as the antidote<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Dawie Roodt, Efficient Group chief economist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Roodt contrasted CBDCs with private-sector digital currencies such as Bitcoin and stablecoins, arguing that the latter are not subject to the same risks of government overreach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stablecoins are privately issued cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currencies or other assets, typically backed by reserves of cash or government bonds held by the issuer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike volatile cryptocurrencies, whose prices are driven purely by supply and demand, stablecoins are designed to maintain a stable value \u2014 most commonly, one token equals one US dollar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This stability makes them practical for everyday transactions, paying salaries, and saving, without the risk of sharp overnight price swings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roodt said private-sector stablecoins are the natural antidote to the potential dangers of CBDCs, and predicted their growth would accelerate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think this will naturally happen \u2014 private-sector digital currencies that oppose CBDCs,” he said, adding that the variety of stablecoins already available demonstrates this trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that stablecoins can be backed by a range of assets, including rands, dollars, gold, or other financial instruments, giving communities flexibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stablecoin market has received a major regulatory boost in the United States through the GENIUS Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in July 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This legislation established the first comprehensive federal framework for payment stablecoins, requiring issuers to maintain reserves of high-quality liquid assets equal to 100% of stablecoins in circulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rand-based stablecoins and community currencies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In South Africa, two rand-pegged stablecoin projects are already operational \u2014 the long-running ZARP, which is available to anyone, and the newly launched ZARU, which is restricted to institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roodt said the stablecoin model opens possibilities for communities to create their own private money tailored to specific needs and backed by assets of their choosing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He described a scenario where a community could issue its own currency backed by gold, with low transaction costs, and designed to serve local economic needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is possible that in the future we may have far fewer currencies, or it is certainly possible that we may have many more currencies,” Roodt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his February budget presentation, Roodt had warned that smaller currencies like the rand could eventually be displaced by dollar-pegged stablecoins with lower transaction costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Efficient Group chief economist Dawie Roodt has warned that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could become a powerful tool for authoritarian control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":632157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44696],"tags":[71238,11177,11179,103621],"class_list":["post-632156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-central-bank-digital-currency-cbdc","tag-dawie-roodt","tag-efficient-group","tag-lex-libertas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632156"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":632159,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632156\/revisions\/632159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}