Could crypto be a backdoor to total financial control and surveillance ?

**I have no clue if any of this will ever happen. Posting it as food for thought and because it's a dam interesting read.

The walls are closing in on your financial freedom—but not in the way most Americans believe.

While the debate rages over the future threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), a far more insidious reality has already taken hold: our existing financial system already functions as a digital control grid, monitoring transactions, restricting choices, and enforcing compliance through programmable money.

I see a lot of chatter on X and such on this issue and it seems there are a lot of pundits that don't really understand stablecoins or crypto. Many pundits seem to think people use stablecoins like they were a more convenient electronic checking account. That's not how they are used in my experience. They are mostly used to move in and out of positions on non-stablecoin crypto tokens. Foreign nationals also use them for cross-border remittances, but that's a small percentage of the use/transaction volume AFAIK.

The future of digital currency - of an actual transactional crypto with widespread adoption and use - is still up for grabs with many projects still developing and innovating in an effort to best solve the blockchain trilema (Security. Decentralization. Scalability). I suspect that as that race narrows, privacy is finally going to get attention.

The great thing about Trump's win shifting the government's focus from animus to support is that investment and innovation are going to start growing. Even for "legacy blockchains" like Ethereum - the OG proof of stake project - that lack inherent privacy features, there are options such as mixers (like Tornado Cash) for those that want privacy. These sorts of things will only get better because there is demand for them.