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So underrated, Foss could burn down Visa and all it would take is Amazon or Google to champion it. % of every transaction would be saved.
Imagine if credit card fraud was actually not easy, and more importantly your spending habits were not trackable. So much targeted adverts would just die off.
It's a neat idea but I think the concept of user payments privacy and also being based on custodial centralized exchanges collecting KYC and trying for total compliance is too contradictory to work out. This totally depends on state acceptance and not pushing the removal of privacy features.
Privacy is a good thing. And don't forget the State works for us.
Privacy is a good thing.
Yes
And don’t forget the State works for us.
Hasn't Europe been seriously considering bans on end to end encryption? Aren't there serious pushes to force VPN companies to keep logs? And for all this project seems to be trying to emphasize its distinction from other styles of cryptocurrency, the goal and means is largely similar, and I don't think you can ignore all the precedent for how crypto exchanges, mixers and pseudo-mixers have been treated regardless of their efforts to be compliant with the law, especially as relates to privacy features. So how can you possibly trust a state to perpetually remain on the right side of this? The design of this project means there is little possible resistance to any level of attack coming from that direction, even something as simple as banks dropping the exchange as a customer would kill it, and I think it is a fatal flaw, especially when other cryptocurrencies already achieve greater levels of privacy and payment censorship resistance without asking or needing permission, despite being under constant attack from states.
Lol wut. Most cryptocurrencies have less privacy then tradfi. Do you even blockchain?
A State is an entity made of of many people. It will always have people trying to destroy privacy and also people trying to enhance privacy. GDPR is excellent.
Most cryptocurrencies have less privacy then tradfi
Sort of, but that doesn't really contradict what I said, because cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency tools that enable more privacy exist and work and are used. Even ones that don't offer the potential for pseudonymity and are functional for bypassing the arbitrary censorship/control of Visa etc, for example see recent events with CivitAI.
It will always have people trying to destroy privacy and also people trying to enhance privacy.
But this means the people trying to destroy it will win sometimes. That means it is important that systems for preserving privacy should be resilient against small victories by this faction. By design GNU Taler seems to lack the resilience against interference that is a core feature of decentralized systems which could be used in its place.
Can non-swiss people use it? Can it be used outside your switzerland? I want to try it out.
Nope. Iirc you can self host it to pay using your fictional currency, but currently noone other than switzerland is actually using it. Europe was considering it, so you'll see what happens in 2027/2028.
If you are in germany, The GLS bank will be inviting people to test it: https://www.gls.de/taler
GLS charges per month. I'll never understand why Germans pay to give their money to a company to invest and profit off of it
