The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (HR 6644) earned solid bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, with both sides approving the bill, but language in the bill will impact central bank digital currency or CBDCs, which have made it through reconciliation.
Overall, the legislation aims to address the housing shortage by boosting production, streamlining regulations, and improving home financing. It also includes language that bans large institutional ownership of single-family homes.
In the US, CBDCs are a controversial topic. Many people are concerned that creating a CBDC, a digital dollar controlled by the federal government, will provide an opportunity for extreme surveillance and possible policy implementation that is too hard for the Feds to resist. At the same time, support for privately issued digital currency, payment stablecoins, has been signed into law.
According to the bill’s language, CBDCs are prohibited through 2030.
Section 1101 of the bill states:
Except as provided in subsection (c), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or a Federal reserve bank may not issue or create a central bank digital currency or any digital asset that is substantially similar to a central bank digital currency directly or indirectly through a financial institution or other intermediary.
Subsection (b) shall not prohibit any dollar-denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private, and fully preserves the privacy protections of United States coins and physical currency.
Nothing in this section shall be construed to allow the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to issue a central bank digital currency or any digital asset that is substantially similar to a central bank digital currency directly or indirectly absent authorization by an Act of Congress.”
While some jurisdictions like Europe and China are moving toward wide adoption of CBDCs, if this bill becomes law, a government-issued digital dollar is DOA in the United States in favor of private sector innovation.