But now the EU's central banks, normally used to deploying technical or economic arguments, are facing a different kind of opposition that's much more political. That opposition can start with legitimate concerns about privacy and the limits of government power - but it can also venture into conspiracy theories that paint CBDCs as part of a much larger, orchestrated program of state control.
For some of those opposed to the idea, 'the creation of a digital currency in euro area or any other part of the world is becoming part of this huge plot - together with wokeism, together with the green agenda, and so on, to control the world and the lives of citizens,' said Belgian Central Bank Governor Pierre Wunsch, speaking at an event on Thursday.
Luts said that skeptics of big government are 'not a bunch of people who believe that the world is governed by snake people - this is a mainstream movement.