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There's something I'm really struggling to understand when talking about things like Taler, and the "Digital euro" idea which has come up recently as well: What is it actually doing that's new?
Money is distributed digitally already. When you get a paycheck, no-one is actually moving physical paper and metal cash from a business account bank vault to a customer account bank vault, it's just numbers in a spreadsheet. So what's actually new when we're talking about digital currency like this post?
There must be something I'm missing here.
Current Platforms are private businesses. Paypal, Mastercard, Visa, they're all private businesses that can do whatever they want. This means that 1 They all charge a lot of money (I think 1-5% of the purchase) 2.1 since they're all american the new Führer can turn off digital payments for a Business or even an entire Country he doesn't like. And the way he uses every single leverage he can get to get others agree to his terms, this seems realistic. 2.2 since they're private businesses with a quasi-monopoly on digital payments, they can threaten our economies if we try to do something they don't like, say raising taxes on them or limiting how much they can charge. A Taler by the national bank would be completely sovereign and make us independent from the US and its companies.
The Taler also has the advantage that the buyer is anonymous. So if you want to buy a Dildo without the seller, the bank, the government or even your family knowing, you can. If you delete the payment from your history then there is no proof at all that that payment came from you (well, your shipping address is on the package, but that's not something the Taler can solve lol). However, different from other crypto currencies, the seller is NOT anonymous, which prevents tax evasion.
Hope that cleared it up?
an additional note: part of why is it not perfect is that you can't send money privately to another person, like you would do with cash. in transactions like that there is a 3rd party involved that overses the transaction
Solving tax evasion while keeping both parties anonymous would be incredibly hard if not outright impossible though. Cash is king for privacy but also for tax evasion.
I don’t think any digital solution could or should replace cash. They can and should exist and function together.
Is this a flaw of Taler or the businesses like Visa?
That's definitely something that gets listed as an advantage of The Digital Euro, and something that you can't do with Visa (although you can with PayPal), so if expect that Taler supports it.
I was just playing around with their demo, and person to person transcations are supported. If you send me your username I can send you 50 kudos (fake money for the demo).
https://demo.taler.net/en/
I actually haven't been able to try sending money yet lol
taler://pay-pull/exchange.demo.taler.net/22PZCE789NDRY45H313P5HJYN79ACRX45FYA69ZVYK35WTSX3770
Ok, pretty sure I managed to send you 2.5 kudos.
Dang, that worked. Wanna try the reverse?
Sure: taler://pay-pull/exchange.demo.taler.net/DGEEWNJDK1TKCRWP8803ASGSF0KX1FKEN9XR1420BQFT4E6S9EWG
should have worked?
Dang, that was fast. The transfer went from "pending" to "sent" in half a second. Makes me really optimistic about Talers future :))
Two of the things that I think are new vs the current system are:
Wallet: anonymous holding of currency without a custodian. You can't hold fiat currency digitally today without a bank or other entity providing that service.
Transfer: moving fiat currency anonymously and under your own direction without intermediaries. You can't make a digital payment or transfer in pure fiat currency today without that custodian providing the service (often through fee-based payment network). As a result, your identity is known when that transaction happens.
This.
A legit offline digital currency transfer akin to how one uses cash.
And ofc a giant body regulating it with proper audits, directives, delegated acts, etc.
Additionally this opens up the possibility of a modern personal existence without banks (ie private companies). We are now basically forced to use banks + (USA) monies transfer systems.
Disclaimer: Not an expert on this.
It was previously not really possible to send money digitally directly, except in the form of cyptocurrency. It always goes through banks or intermediaries. If you transfer money between bank accounts, the banks have to talk to each other to do so, and the "real" transfer happens between their central bank accounts at a later point in time. There is indeed only spreadsheets with numbers going up and down. Effectively the banks are in control of all of it. In most cases we don't want a slow bank transfer but some sort of user-friendly payment portal like PayPal or wero, which the banks also need to have contracts with (or, operate themselves).
My vague understanding here is that this process is completely detached from banks, and that you are thus transferring actual money. It's not just numbers in a spreadsheet going up and down.
If anybody understands it better please correct anything I got wrong.
@PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de
You get this right I would say.
You need to install an electronic wallet on your device and add the fiat money amount to the wallet's balance (so Taler itself s not a currency).
There's a demo on the website for those interested (you need to download a wallet): https://www.taler.net/en