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I warmly recommend anybody who didn't use GNU Taler yet to do so right now, for free, in minutes :
GNU Taler provides a well done demonstration https://demo.taler.net/ that one can try right here in the browser, going from a virtual bank to their wallet and buying items in "KUDOS". It does address quite a few points raised in different discussions here.
And here is transfer from my Web based wallet to my mobile wallet, again with the testing currency :
would be pretty based if they actually succeeds
Can we get GNU Taller to all europe please
I looked at this a looong time ago, but the basic idea is that the tokens (equivalent to cash coins/banknotes) are generated on the end user's device, through some public-key cryptographic back-and-forth protocol. The issuer (bank/central bank/payment provider) does not see these tokens (they're only on the end users device), but can verify that they're legit (i.e. issued by them) somehow.
You can take one of these tokens to them, and deposit it in an account. They won't know who it's from but they know it was legitimately issued by them. Depositing a token is also supposed to be the only way of figuring out if it is a legit token, the bank will not tell you if a token is legit unless you deposit it.
When someone pays with these tokens in a shop, the shop will want to immediately (during checkout) deposit them, to make sure they're legit, and also to make sure the token hasn't been double spent. A shop that doesn't do that makes itself vulnerable to fraud. This means shops will have a hard time hiding their revenue (to dodge taxes) compared to cash.
If someone you trust gives you a token (birthday money from your grandma, say), you don't have to immediately deposit said token, since presumably you trust your grandma to not give you fake or double-spent tokens. Since you trust you grandma, there is no need to deposit the token and involve the bank, and that transfer would be untraceable (it's literally just copying a number from her phone to yours).
The idea is that shop owners would have a hard time dodging taxes without opening themselves up to fraudsters using fake tokens, while the customer cannot be identified. You'd also be able to exchange tokens with family and friends in a way that isn't traceable, as long as you trust them to not screw you over.
What is the relationship of fiat currency to tokens? is it €1:1 token?
The tokens can be worth different amounts. There can be 1 ¢ tokens, 10 ¢ tokens, 1 € euro tokens, 10 € tokens, whatever. Your wallet app will, when withdrawing, generate various tokens worth different amounts.
Using those tokens will be somewhat like paying in cash at a store that does not return any change. You gotta pay the exact amount. In order to facilitate that, you'd withdraw tokens worth only small amounts. There wouldn't be like be any 50 € tokens in practice. If you wanted to withdraw 50 €, you'd get 1000 1 ¢ tokens, 100 10 ¢ tokens, and the rest 1 € tokens or something like that, to make sure you always have the exact amount ready to pay for anything.
Thats not true I think. Taler is able to anonymously give "change money". https://youtu.be/fY-DWLHVLk4?t=2380 (39:40 timestamp)
Dude, I assume my grandma has absolutely been scamed, and her birthday money is basically as valuable as Trump coins
I'm expecting that if she has been scammed and her token was stolen, you can report this token to the police and they might be able to ask the banking system in which account was this token deposited, to hopefully trace the scammer back.
If so, this looks safer than the scams that ask grandmas to get giftcard codes.
But that's assuming that the token was obtained from grandm's bank and not that the grandma paid a scammer in some other untraceable way to obtain a fake token from the scammer. That would be a different kind of scam.
Then you wanna deposit it immediately to find out, like a seller does
Digital currency without "blockchain", say it ain't so! This is why I think it might actually work. It's not based on some kind of Rube Goldberg experiment to run the world power into nothingness.
What's their stance on porn?
That'll be a big one. I could see tons of artists wanting to flock to a platform without risks of a ban.
And any platform that wants to allow adult content would have a viable means to secure funding. You can't overstate how far the chilling effects of VISA et al's anti-porn stance reaches.
It seems sellers can host their own payment receipt service and the verfication comes from cryptographically signing the money when it's issued from issuers
Could this be scaled to other European countries?
Shouldn't we gather feedback first from that experiment before scaling up?
LETS GO!?!?!?!? I have been waiting for taler to be usable for ages now. I doubt it will ever come to canada, but hey, small wins are small wins.