GNU Taler begins operating in Switzerland, distributed by the Taler Operations AG. Gnu Taler aims to be a “digital wallet” and has been used by the swiss national bank as well as the european national bank as a example for how a digital currency handed out by the state could work. It aims to be as privacy preserving as cash for the buyer while not allowing the seller to evade taxes.
Currently the Taler is brought out by a special organisation, the “Taler Operations AG”, and not the national bank, although both the national bank as well as the Taler Team have shown interest in a official digial currency by the national bank based on the Taler. But we need to relativate as the national council has stated that the introduction of a digital currency would probably take relatively major legislative changes and therefore take a bit of time.
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?