• RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip
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    13 hours ago

    Not all good, but sounds like an upgrade.

    I bet this is a big motivator:

    “Limiting the spread of foreign digital currencies to safeguard the financial stability and monetary sovereignty of the Eurozone”

    You want your currency to be the convenient one.

      • jnod4@lemmy.ca
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        12 hours ago

        Sheesh, that would boost “economy” to no ends, all billionaires would salvate at the thought of the plebs having expiring currency, it would be impossible to boycott

      • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        That would indeed be strange. I hadn’t read anything about it before, but I hadn’t really looked into GNU Taler yet either. It just sounds promising to me because it’s FOSS and aims to break the monopoly of payment service providers so we can finally get away from US companies.

        • I’m not sure that’s Taler’s goal really. Ultimately if you don’t want to use Visa or MasterCard you already can, through instant SCT for example. IIRC that is mandatory to be supported by all banks soon. This does require a SWIFT connection, but I don’t think getting an alternative for that is on the cards anytime soon.

          Taler is still a cool project though, and I’m interested to see where it goes next. IIRC it’s main advantage is privacy, though I wonder how certain KYC/money-laundering checks are supposed to happen.

    • Mihies@programming.dev
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      15 hours ago

      First time I hear about it. Interesting concept though a bit complicated with fees, need to have wallet offline for a short periods, no periodic payments etc. Nevertheless, it’d be nice for merchants to accept it.

    • Beacon@fedia.io
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      17 hours ago

      I don’t think anything would prevent a site from accepting digital euros from everyone. If you’re in the us, your local grocery store is perfectly free to accept any currency they want, and you’re free to spend any currency you want. If you and your local grocery store agree on it then it’s perfectly legal for you to buy an avocado from them for 1 euro.

      • ch00f@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        Yeah, the law just says that you must accept US currency for debts owed. Doesn’t say you have to accept it for everything.

        • Beacon@fedia.io
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          16 hours ago

          Yeah by law you must accept us dollars, but you’re allowed to accept anything else you want in addition

          • ch00f@lemmy.world
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            15 hours ago

            Only for debts owed. That’s how stores can say they only accept credit card. If you’re just buying something, a store can refuse US currency.

              • MartianSands@sh.itjust.works
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                15 hours ago

                There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services.

                The federal reserve disagrees with you. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

                When you want to buy something, that isn’t a debt. It’s only a debt if you already own the thing and haven’t paid for it yet, so the law about accepting dollars in payment for debt doesn’t apply.

  • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    17 hours ago

    why do CBDC? SEPA/SEPA Instant already exists and can clear payments just fine without involving VISA/Mastercard. Will people recieve salary in this digital Euro account? probably not because banks lobby, they want cheap funding source i.e. customer deposits. most people wouldn’t want it since there is no interest paid (compared to tiny to moderate interest in savings accounts), you don’t have card even as an option. Like I don’t mind ppl using central bank liabilities for payments but the entire capitalist financial infrastructure is built around commercial banks. its just inconvenient having to transfer money between commercial bank and ECB wallets.

    It won’t destabilize existing financial system or result in bank runs, all banks in the Eurozone are ultimately backstopped by the ECB. bank lending isn’t reserve constrained, it is true that losing cheap deposits may reduce profitability of banks, but that’s it. they will be able to lend just fine because of ECB’s LTROs, TLTROs etc.

    the privacy argument against CBDCs is silly though. Commercial banks ultimately work because of Government, they use Government money for clearing. Governments can just ask them for your data if needed.

    Subsidize SEPA/SEPA Instant. Make it free, a public service. Market it by using the said arguments, people will use it more then. Maybe even force banks to issue cards like Mir in Russia or Unionpay in China.

    • SebaDC@discuss.tchncs.de
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      17 hours ago

      Plus, a government can’t track or earmark money. With a digital euro, they gain much more control over how you are allowed to spend your money.

      Considering the autocracy trend, the timing is “unfortunate”.

      • omarthemediocre@lemmy.zip
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        7 hours ago

        As said, this will not replace physical money. And there is nothing with the digital one they couldn’t do already. Not really sure what is the scare about.

        • SebaDC@discuss.tchncs.de
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          7 hours ago

          You have obviously never driven change in an organization.

          You don’t claim to change everything on day one. You say: “people will have the choice”.

          Then, you reduce the choices. Your taxes? They have to be in digital euros.

          Then, you increase the scope. Purchases over 50k? Digital euros. It’s only a minority of transactions anyway.

          Then, you lower the bar. Anything above 10k.

          Then, you reduce the printing of physical money (lower values) and you say: “digital euros are more convenient anyway”.

          The digital euro is going in pair with the new privacy laws.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      17 hours ago

      Sounds like a good idea. The only downfalls/speed bumps I’m seeing mentioned is that to increase the transaction speed the amount of data carried is limited, which doesn’t allow for the same securities.

      Not sure if it’s legitimate fears or not. I hadn’t heard of it till you mentioned this.

      Thanks for mentioning it though, it’ll be cool to see if it goes that way

      https://www.flagright.com/post/mandatory-sepa-instant-payments-real-time-compliance#%3A~%3Atext=The+Finextra+survey+found+more%2Cto+avoid+delaying+customers'+payments.

    • Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social
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      12 hours ago

      Brave of you to use AI on Lemmy

      You’ll probably het down voted because of the AI = Bad mentality here.

      Even though you’ve used it in a useful way to provide a transcript, which if people read instead of watching the video would probably save electricity