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.
Not sure about the anonymity is good or not: why is that necessary? Current bank systems are already anonymous
Uhh no the fuck they’re not?
While is disagree with the harsh tone of u/als@lemmy.blahaj.zone and u/altro_city@fedia.io here, The current banking systems are not anonymous. Anonymity is important to protect our privacy, to prevent us being manipulated and, in the worst case, to protect our security.
Imagine something like the US. A ultra-conservative government gets to power and decides that anyone that has ever bought a Dildo is a threat to children and needs to be put on a watchlist. The GNU Taler prevents that by hiding that you ever bought a Dildo.
The GNU Taler also has the advantage of not being 100% private. While the buyer is, in fact, completely private, the seller is not. This protects the buyer, as noone can see who bought something or prove a specific person bought anything, but still prevents the seller (the one receiving money) from evading taxes, as the government can clearly see that he received money, even if it doesn’t know from whom.
The GNU Taler aims to be a perfect balance of the advantages of cash and digital payments and it manages to do so pretty well in my opinion.
I mean, not really right? The government can still ask the webshop, that probably took your name and address. Or the PSP that facilitated the transaction, they likely know too. It’s not like Visa/MasterCard/banks are the only parties that know it now, and the others are usually also beholden to laws that let government agencies query things.
obviously, but that’s not something you can fix via the payment method ;P
Absolutely true, but it does place some question marks after the supposed benefit of Taler. Not due to any fault of Taler ofc.
you have to solve problems 1 at a time
the eshop could just have incredibly shitty logs and just not have that information.
Most webshops don’t directly implement payment methods, they implement PSPs. And those do keep good logs. Depending on the shop keeping those logs may be required by law too.
keep on forgetting the atrocities that are kyc laws.
That’s a problem that can’t really be solved with technology.
Could you explain how the current banking system is anonymous?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_secrecy
That means private, not anonymous. The bank still knows who you are, that you have a bank account (or multiple) there, how much money the bank accounts have, who transferred money to the bank account and who took it out. Bank transfers require knowledge of a name, bank number, bank account number, and sometimes even more information e.g if a transfer above 10k is made it has to be reported to the IRS (same applies in Europe) - if you were anonymous, that wouldn’t be possible.
Also, that wiki page links to more pages about banking privacy in multiple countries. Nowhere does it mention anonymity.
Privacy != anonymity