Programmable money is a fast-moving train—and it could have a significant impact on your freedom to transact as well as your bank deposits and other assets.

The traditional two-party or “two-lock” financial system, involving a buyer and seller who each can approve or reject a transaction, is under threat. What central bankers and technocrats are hoping to birth—using dynamic algorithms and distributed ledger technology—is an automated “three-lock” system, in which algorithms—not people—impose conditions on transactions or prevent them from taking place at all. This programmability tsunami is gunning not just for your freedom to transact but for your assets—including, in the form of “digital tokens,” your bank deposits, equities, and bonds. This Wrap Up can help you get up to speed on what programmability means so that you can join the movement to put legislative guardrails in place that provide basic consumer protections against the abuse of programmable money and support financial transaction freedom.