[kwlug-disc] Bank of Canada launching public consultations on a digital dollar

[CrankyOldBugger]

Oh, I agree with you.  And being someone who lives in the middle of
Mennonite country, I know cash isn't going away anytime soon.  But I
certainly would welcome any system that replaces both cash and bank cards
equally.  And more than that, I would welcome a system where everyone has
access to money in a fair and just system.  But do a quick read of the last
4,000 years of human history and you'll know that certain people will find
a way to hijack any system for their own gain, at everyone else's expense.
Sorry to be the negative one here, but that's just the way I see it.


On Fri, May 12, 2023 at 8:04 PM Doug Moen <doug at moens.org> wrote:

> > In the end, no matter what system we use, be it paper or digits, it will
> still be unfairly distributed.
>
> True, but this could still address an important social justice issue.
> If you are homeless, there's a good chance that you can't get a bank
> account or a credit card.
> You rely on cash, but it's increasingly hard to use cash to participate in
> the economy. It won't work for internet purchases, for one thing.
> A digital cash card (that you can get without ID, or a bank account, or
> other credentials) would allow you to buy things or receive money in some
> cases where cash doesn't work.
>
>
> On Fri, May 12, 2023, at 4:35 PM, CrankyOldBugger wrote:
>
> In the end, no matter what system we use, be it paper or digits, it will
> still be unfairly distributed.
>
> On Fri, May 12, 2023 at 4:33 PM Doug Moen <doug at moens.org> wrote:
>
> > I'm unclear on how you implement truly anonymous digital cash that
> > doesn't undergo Bitcoin style inflation. Is it possible to have true
> > anonymity and still peg the value to the Canadian dollar? ...
>
> NM, the probable solution to my problem is to use physical hardware, just
> as the original MintChip was physical hardware. So you carry a card that is
> charged with a certain amount of cash, and you can exchange money using a
> local and anonymous process. Bitcoin can't be anonymous because the
> blockchain is public. But a hardware implementation can also prevent cash
> from being duplicated, without the cash balance in your wallet being public
> knowledge, so a blockchain isn't needed. If you can transfer cash to and
> from a MintChip at an ATM, then there is a loss of privacy at that
> interface, but it's no better or worse than cash. Two people with MintChips
> could exchange digital cash without loss of privacy. using a card to card
> crypto protocol.
>
> This system could be equivalent to physical cash from a privacy and
> freedom perspective, without some of the downsides of Bitcoin. Like, it
> could support truly anonymous transactions, and it could be pegged to the
> Canadian dollar, so you don't have the insecurity of a wildly volatile
> currency.
>
> MintChip also supported online transactions. That could still be anonymous
> if there is a secure protocol for exchanging cash between MintChips that
> just happens to run over the internet in this case. You would need a
> MintChip physically plugged into a server for this to work for purchasing
> from an E-store.
>
> The MintChip web site says that it worked just as I was describing. I
> remember blog posts and stories revealing that it was all a false front
> government scam surveillance play, but maybe that was propaganda and I fell
> for it. Dunno.
>
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