We are shocked and saddened to learn that Tennessee State Representative and Solari Hero Jeff Burkhart passed away. News of his death came suddenly and unexpectedly. Burkhart was only 63. According to family members, he passed away in his home Friday morning.

Last year, Representative Burkhart (together with Senator Bill Powers) sponsored and passed HB 1901 (= SB 2219), which excluded central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) from the definition of money and deposit accounts in Tennessee. The Solari Report named him Hero of the Week in recognition of this accomplishment.

The bill inspired several other states to pass similar legislation, thus creating substantial roadblocks to the implementation of CBDCs in America. This series of clear legislative statements then led Donald Trump to publicly state that there would not be a CBDC with him as president. As we keep pointing out at Solari, programmable money—whether in the form of a CBDC, stablecoins, or asset tokenization—is the greatest threat to human freedom we are currently facing.

Representative Burkhart’s bill played a major role in raising awareness about CBDCs, and by obstructing their rollout, his bill served to protect our most basic human freedoms, including our ability to spend our money how, when, where, and for what we want. We all owe him our serious gratitude for passing this bill and thus winning us precious time in the fight against programmable money and for the protection of our basic liberty.