Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) is pushing to stop the US government from ever creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC), filing an amendment Tuesday to add those protections back into this year’s massive defense bill.
Key Takeaways (Humanized)
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Rep. Self is trying to reinsert language blocking a US CBDC after it was unexpectedly removed.
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Conservatives say GOP leadership broke a promise to include CBDC restrictions in the final bill.
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The amendment aims to prevent a Federal Reserve–issued digital dollar and protect cash-like financial privacy.
Self said Republicans had been assured that anti-CBDC language would appear in the legislation, but when the updated text dropped Sunday, it was nowhere to be found.
“Promises were broken to include this language in the NDAA,” he wrote on X. “My amendment would fix the bill.”
House Races to Pass Defense Bill as Self Tries to Block a Fed-Backed Digital Dollar
House leaders are pushing to pass the annual defense package on Wednesday, though negotiations are still in flux, Politico reported.
Self’s amendment — called the “Anti-CBDC Surveillance State” proposal — would explicitly ban the Federal Reserve from developing, testing, or launching a CBDC. It also blocks the Fed from offering bank accounts or financial services directly to Americans, something critics say would hand the government unprecedented control over citizens’ finances.
The proposal includes one exception: digital currency that is “open, permissionless, and private”—a carve-out meant to preserve cash-like privacy protections.
The defense bill itself spans more than 3,000 pages and is one of Congress’s annual “must-pass” pieces of legislation. That’s why conservatives were furious when previously promised CBDC restrictions disappeared from the latest draft.
Self told Fox Business that Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s anti-CBDC language was supposed to be part of the package. But after reading the actual bill, he found it had been removed entirely.
“We have to pass an NDAA,” Self said. “We’ve got to fix it and get it passed.”
Why Republicans Say a CBDC Is Dangerous
Several Republicans backed Self’s concerns:
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she supports crypto but opposes anything that could let the government dictate how people spend their money.
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Rep. Warren Davidson warned that a CBDC would “insert the government between you and your money.” He said Congress needs a permanent statutory ban — not just executive action — to prevent it.
Earlier this year, President Trump issued an executive order blocking federal agencies from creating or promoting a CBDC, citing threats to privacy and national sovereignty.
Still, GOP aides told The Hill that negotiations over a separate bipartisan housing bill complicated things, and the CBDC ban ultimately didn’t make it into the final NDAA draft because the language “was not something that was ultimately going to be acceptable to our members.”
