Mark Neo

My mother spent the first twenty years of her life without a birth certificate. Not because her country didn’t keep records, but because the system that held those records was too far away to reach. The office was three days from her village. The fee cost more than a week’s income. So she grew up in a strange in-between space—fully alive, fully known by her community, but invisible to anything that required proof on paper.
When she finally got her documents, it didn’t magically fix everything. It took years to rebuild what most people accumulate without thinking: a traceable identity. School records, eligibility, continuity. The system didn’t just recognize her—it asked her to prove herself, piece by piece.
That gap—between being a person and being recognized as one by systems—is still a reality for millions. In places like , it’s not unusual. And it’s not because people don’t exist in the system at all. Often, they do—just not in a way that works.
The numbers are striking. A large portion of the population has identity numbers, but only a small percentage has physical ID cards. On paper, they exist. In practice, they don’t. And that difference matters more than it sounds. Because without something you can present and verify, that identity number doesn’t open a bank account. It doesn’t unlock services. It doesn’t move money.
So you end up with a strange contradiction: people are counted, but still excluded. Farmers can’t receive subsidies that were meant for them. Social programs don’t reach the people they were designed to help. Not because the money isn’t there—but because there’s no reliable way to connect it to the person.
This is the problem companies like are trying to solve. And to be fair, they’re not wrong about the core issue. Identity isn’t just a feature—it’s infrastructure. Without it, everything else struggles to function. You can build digital payments, financial systems, government programs—but if people can’t prove who they are in a usable way, none of it reaches them.
There’s a simple logic to it. Identity enables accounts. Accounts enable transactions. Transactions enable participation. Fix the first step, and the rest can finally work.
And for someone who has been excluded, that’s not a small thing. It’s the difference between receiving help that already exists and never seeing it at all.
But here’s the part that’s harder to talk about.
The people who most need this infrastructure are also the ones who will depend on it the most—and have the least say in how it’s designed or used.
Because modern digital identity systems aren’t just digital versions of paper IDs. When combined with financial systems, they become something much more powerful. Every transaction can be recorded. Payments can come with conditions—where they can be spent, how quickly, or on what. Accounts can be paused or restricted. Data can flow automatically into regulatory systems.
Individually, each of these features can be explained. You can say they reduce fraud, improve efficiency, make sure resources are used properly. And in many cases, that’s true.
But together, they create a system that doesn’t just include people—it also shapes what they can do.
The farmer in Sierra Leone who can’t receive a subsidy today would, in a better system, finally get that money. That’s real progress. But she would also be stepping into a system that records her transactions, potentially limits how funds are used, and can be adjusted or paused without her having much ability to challenge it.
And that’s where the tension sits.
Because inclusion isn’t neutral. Being brought into a system always means accepting the rules of that system. And when those rules are complex, invisible, or hard to challenge, the people inside them can become dependent in ways they didn’t choose.
In countries with strong institutions, clear laws, and real accountability, there are at least some safeguards. But in places where those protections are weaker, the balance of power shifts quickly. The system works—but it also becomes something you can’t easily question or step outside of.
There’s a tendency to treat access as the end of the story. As if once people are included, the problem is solved. But inclusion is just the beginning. What matters just as much is the kind of system people are being included into.
The Sierra Leone example makes this real. These aren’t abstract debates. These are people who can’t access money meant for them right now. Fixing that matters. It changes lives.
But if the solution introduces new kinds of control—ones that are harder to see and even harder to resist—then the conversation can’t stop at access alone.
It has to include protection.
Because once identity becomes the gateway to financial life, and financial systems become programmable, the infrastructure starts to shape behavior in quiet ways. Not dramatically, not overnight—but gradually. What gets recorded can be analyzed. What gets analyzed can be optimized. And what gets optimized can be influenced.
Ten years from now, the biggest shift might not just be that more people have digital IDs. It might be that the systems around them are constantly responding to their behavior—adjusting access, eligibility, and opportunity in ways that feel seamless but are deeply structured.
And the people most affected will be the same ones we point to today as proof that these systems are needed.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t build them. The exclusion is real, and leaving it unaddressed isn’t acceptable.
But it does mean we need to ask harder questions while we do.
Not just “does this work?”
But “who does it protect?”
Not just “who gets access?”
But “who has control?”
Because the people who prove the need for this infrastructure are also the ones who will live inside it the longest—and have the least room to push back if it’s built wrong?? 🤔
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I keep thinking about something simple from my past. When I was a student, I had a scholarship. Every semester, the money came in, but it never felt completely free. It had expectations attached to it. I had to maintain a certain grade, stay enrolled, and meet specific requirements. If I didn’t, the payments stopped. At the time, it felt normal. It made sense. The money was there for a purpose, and that purpose came with conditions.
Back then, those conditions were enforced by people. Universities checked records, administrators reviewed progress, and decisions were made manually. It took time, effort, and coordination. The rules existed, but they depended on systems that could be slow, imperfect, and sometimes inconsistent.
Now imagine a different version of that same scholarship. Instead of people enforcing the rules, the money itself does. It simply refuses to exist outside its conditions. If your grades drop, it stops arriving automatically. If you try to use it in a way that isn’t allowed, the transaction fails instantly. No warnings, no appeals in the moment, no exceptions. Just a system that either allows or blocks.
That is the world programmable digital money is slowly building toward.
For most of history, money has been passive. Once you receive it, it becomes yours to use however you want. Cash doesn’t ask questions. A bank transfer doesn’t carry instructions about what you should do next. Money moves, and people decide.
Programmable CBDCs change that basic idea. They introduce the concept that money can carry rules within it. Not soft rules, but hard ones that are enforced automatically. The money is no longer just a medium of exchange. It becomes something closer to a controlled instrument.
Technically, this is made possible by how the system is designed. Instead of treating money as one single balance, it can be broken into smaller units, each with its own properties. When one unit is spent, it disappears and new ones are created. This makes it possible to attach specific conditions to each piece. One unit might only be usable after a certain date. Another might require multiple approvals before it can move. Another might only work at certain types of businesses.
These conditions are not suggestions. They are built into the system itself. If the conditions are not met, the transaction simply cannot happen. There is no workaround because the rule is part of the money’s structure.
From a government’s point of view, this solves a very real and long-standing problem. When money is distributed for a specific purpose, there has always been a risk that it will be used differently. Benefits meant for housing might be spent elsewhere. Subsidies might not reach the intended people. Fraud and misuse have always been part of large-scale financial systems.
Programmable money offers a way to reduce those problems. It can ensure that funds go exactly where they are meant to go and are used exactly how they are intended. A housing benefit can only be spent on housing. A subsidy can only reach verified recipients. A payment can require approvals before it moves. Everything becomes more precise, more targeted, and harder to exploit.
In that sense, it looks like a clear improvement. More efficiency. Less waste. Better outcomes.
But there is another side to this, and it becomes visible once you step back and look at the system as a whole.
All of these conditions—time limits, approvals, usage restrictions—are simply parameters. They can be adjusted, expanded, or combined in different ways. The system itself does not define limits on what kinds of conditions can exist. It only provides the ability to enforce them.
That means the same system that ensures a benefit is used properly can also restrict where you are allowed to spend. It can make money expire if it is not used within a certain time. It can limit transactions based on location. It can change how money behaves depending on data linked to your identity.
None of this requires new technology. It is already part of what the system can do.
This is where the conversation shifts from technology to something deeper. The question is no longer just about efficiency or fraud prevention. It becomes about control, and where the boundaries of that control should be.
There is a pattern that has shown up before. Whenever systems are built to enforce conditions on money, those conditions tend to grow over time. At first, they are simple and focused. Then new use cases appear. New objectives are added. The system becomes more detailed, more specific, more powerful.
In the past, this growth was limited by effort. Complex rules required more administration. More people, more checks, more time. That created a natural limit on how far things could go.
With programmable money, that limit is gone. Adding a new rule does not require more staff or more paperwork. It is just a change in code. The cost of enforcing even very detailed conditions becomes almost zero.
And when something becomes that easy, it rarely stays simple.
This also changes how we think about the economics of money itself. In many digital systems, people focus on value, price, and growth. But here, the focus shifts to behavior. The system is not just distributing money; it is shaping how money moves and how people interact with it.
Money can be designed to encourage spending or saving. It can be directed toward certain industries or regions. It can influence decisions in subtle ways, not by forcing choices directly, but by limiting the options available.
So instead of asking whether the system increases value, a more important question is what kind of behavior it creates.
Around this, a larger ecosystem begins to form. Central banks issue the currency. Technology providers build the infrastructure that allows these conditions to exist. Banks and digital platforms distribute the money and provide access. Identity systems verify who is eligible for what. Businesses interact with the system when they accept payments that may come with restrictions.
It is no longer just money moving between people. It is a network of systems coordinating with each other.
The development of these systems will likely happen gradually. It will start with small programs, limited use cases, and controlled environments. Over time, more features will be added. More conditions will be introduced. The system will expand step by step.
At each stage, the changes may seem reasonable. Each new feature will have a purpose. Each condition will solve a problem. But over time, the overall structure can become something much more complex than what was originally imagined.
That is why the biggest challenge here is not technical. It is about governance and trust.
Who decides what conditions are acceptable? What limits exist on how far those conditions can go? How transparent are those decisions? And what happens if the rules change in ways that people did not expect?
There are also human concerns that come with this shift. Privacy becomes more fragile when money is linked to identity and conditions. Personal freedom can feel reduced if money becomes too restricted in how it can be used. People may begin to feel that they are not fully in control of their own financial choices.
At the same time, the benefits remain real. Better targeting, reduced fraud, faster distribution, and more efficient systems are not small improvements. They can make a meaningful difference, especially in large and complex economies.
That is what makes this topic so difficult to define clearly. It is not simply positive or negative. It is a powerful tool that can be used in different ways depending on the choices made around it.
In the end, the most important question may not be about how the technology works, but about who controls it and how it is used.
Because once money learns to follow rules, the real issue is not whether it can do so, but who gets to decide what those rules are, and how much space is left for people to decide for themselves.
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