Nick Anthony

Research Fellow at the @CatoInstitute's @CatoCMFA and Fellow at the @HRF. Covering CBDCs, financial privacy, and cryptocurrency. Opinions are my own.

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

Did I hold up the Constitution to Congress? Yes.
Did I reference the Grateful Dead? Also, Yes.

[The Moscow Times @MoscowTimes]

Opinion: Russians should be concerned about the power the Central Bank's new digital ruble would give the state over their finances, warns @EconWithNick.
https://t.co/eoObqqcB7r

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

Russians deserve to know what their own Central Bank is asking them to opt into.

See my latest in the @MoscowTimes as I discuss findings from the @HRF CBDC Tracker.

https://t.co/EXWzg7IaOw

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

Even government officials have learned what their own central banks were working on by using the @HRF CBDC Tracker. That’s exactly why this kind of transparency matters. https://t.co/y9DupXlydd

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

"Nick, how bad could it be"

This bad, anon.

https://t.co/4sgabJh8lI

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

Spending Bitcoin is becoming easier every day. Yet Form 8949 alone can run to around 70 pages if you spend Bitcoin every day. https://t.co/SqvZ2q7eCH

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

I will say... tracking taxes is the most frustrating part of spending bitcoin for me.

I've spent bitcoin on things large and small in countries far and wide. Every time has been seamless and keeps getting better. Yet, tracking and filing taxes has remained a constant headache.

It's time to change the law.

[MARA Foundation @MARAFoundation_]

Despite years of policy advocacy, spending Bitcoin in the U.S. has triggered a taxable event, even if it’s on a cup of coffee.

“You could argue that the second-order effect of a de minimis tax exemption would be better create the conditions that have a virtuous cycle of adoption.”

Bitcoin faces several several payment-use-case adoption hurdles, but excluding small purchases from capital gains tax could support a real shift among merchants, according to David Zell (@DavidZell_), co-founder and president of the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

@andrebeganski @CatoInstitute Thank you!

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

I sat down with the @CatoInstitute's Patrick Eddington to talk about all things financial surveillance. Check out the interview below.

https://t.co/CnmasKCg5z

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

https://t.co/tx8cA2birc

[Cato CMFA @CatoCMFA]

Cato Surveillance Week 2026 featured a panel that included Cato scholars Patrick Eddington and Nicholas Anthony. As usual, there were more questions than they had time to address.

Read below for Patrick Eddington & @EconWithNick's chat after the event: https://t.co/XGf9FdJLCP

[Rob Johnson @FreeRangeLawyer]

IRS agents seized over $450,000 from a small business in Arizona in February 2025.

The alleged crime? "Structuring" ... meaning engaging in cash transactions under $10,000.

Nearly 20 months later, the government has not filed a case, but still has the funds.

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

@KevinTFrazier

[Kevin Frazier @KevinTFrazier]

Read Nick's work here: https://t.co/6HgiqACKMB

[Kevin Frazier @KevinTFrazier]

Lawmakers are well-intentioned. Offices of legislative counsel do great work. And...

we can & should do better.

Imagine, for example, all bills being assessed by AI systems for these kinds of common faults. There'd be no excuse for lawmakers saying they didn't know better.

[Kevin Frazier @KevinTFrazier]

Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in a surge in compliance costs and flagged transactions with little to show for in terms of actual investigations.

[Kevin Frazier @KevinTFrazier]

Americans deserve better laws.

Case in point, the Bank Secrecy Act does not account for inflation. As a result, a law intended only to reach "abnormally large" transactions now applies to far more conduct.

@EconWithNick (@CatoInstitute) documents this problematic drift:

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

The HRF CBDC Tracker now covers 150 jurisdictions, from Albania to Zimbabwe. Each one gets a status, a timeline, and a look at what a CBDC could mean for civil liberties there. Check it out. https://t.co/5HNTvJl928

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

"FinCEN never explained whether those individuals (or what percentage of them)
were doing anything suspicious in this context." - @MitchellScacchi and Luke Wake

https://t.co/JoKP5AHWUs

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

@CoinDesk @RebeccaRettig1 No mention of the @FDICgov instructing banks to deny cryptocurrency?

[Nick Anthony @EconWithNick]

@foronionfutures Heroes

[Cato CMFA @CatoCMFA]

If you missed last week's @CatoInstitute Surveillance Week, you can check out the discussion on financial privacy w/ @EconWithNick and others here: https://t.co/HCqFxxIoSm