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Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

bankofengland.co.uk

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Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#31

Post by scoopertrooper »

slimbods wrote: post #19
canoebuilder wrote: post #12

Bitcoin, et al. seek to approximate a monetary system, to bootstrap a workable currency outside the traditional trappings of a centralized state. Being digital is not the point, it just makes the idea possible whether or not it works in practice. What exactly would a central bank “digital currency” bring to the table? Dollars, pounds, yen, are already digital.

If a business wants to hold cash outside of a bank, it has to use bank notes. This would give them the option of holding digital currency directly. Also you'd expect a ground up design of a digital first currency to include much lower cost of transfers enabling micro transactions and much better speed to settle.

This can be achieved while retaining the existing banking system.

https://nppa.com.au/the-platform/

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#33

Post by walrus01 »

codeulike wrote: post #8

They should make it work on the 'old money' system of penny, shilling and pound, with twelve pence to a shilling and twenty shillings to the pound, then use the abbreviation 'd' for pence, and then throw in farthings (quarter penny) and half-crowns (two shillings and six pence) because if there's one thing I've learnt about finance, its that the more confusing things are, the easier it is to make a profit.

Can I use this to buy a hogshead of ale?

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#35

Post by disruptalot »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #24
itsdsmurrell wrote: post #4

This is great... easier rails into hard money (crypto).

This just shows that blockchain is a good technology. But that bitcoin is just an implementation waiting to become obsolete.

I've been hearing this for 10 years straight.

Thus far the only successful examples of Blockchain technology have been based on digital currencies and Bitcoin has done nothing but continue it's success.

On the other hand, there is not one example of "Blockchain technology" put to work on anything that needed it.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#36

Post by nosianu »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #26
zelphirkalt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While in general quite confusing, I cannot help but notice, that they used to use better divisible numbers like 12, to go to the next bigger unit. I also read that Babylonians or whoever it was, used a system with base 60, even better divisible. I wonder how it would affect our daily lives, if we still had such better divisible numbers in use with money today. For example 60 cent make a euro or dollar or whatever. Of…

My parents grew up with the "old money", and my father in particular always said that it was easier to work with because everything divided by 2,3 or 4 easily. His opinion was always that the new money was introduced to make computerisation easier. In other words, the benefit wasn't for humans (who prefer working in 12's), but for computers.

That does not make sense to me, since computers "native" numbers are not binary and the layer on top would not care one bit if it converts the binary representation to whatever base. Not to mention that the wide-spread use of the decimal system among humans happened long before computers where even dreamed of. So those things point to the decimal system adoption having been made for humans and not for computers.

Countries other than the UK had done that step (for currency) centuries before Britain too.

Here is some background: "How Britain converted to decimal currency" -- https://www.bbc.com/news/business-12346083

Also,

> the benefit wasn't for humans (who prefer working in 12's)

I'm not sure what people you know, I don't know anyone who would prefer base 12. That seems like a very bold claim to me - I think I would like to see some evidence for it.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#37

Post by xwolfi »

KaiserPro wrote: post #30

I've not really understood the need for a "digital" pound, the pound is pretty digital already. I can already have an entirely digital bank account from at least three "challenger" banks. There are also now at least two business accounts that also entirely virtual. "Faster Payments" (customer bank transfers) are delivered in seconds. I can see a need for speeding up BACS, and reducing the price of CHAPS, but apart fr…

A normal citizen is never gonna build a government that allows for anonymous payment systems.

To often people speak of their government as completely abstract separated entity they can only submit to. But actually, they elect them and the government even follow them in their craziest follies, like, say, leaving the EU in the UK.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#38

Post by Jenk »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #15
codeulike wrote: post #8

They should make it work on the 'old money' system of penny, shilling and pound, with twelve pence to a shilling and twenty shillings to the pound, then use the abbreviation 'd' for pence, and then throw in farthings (quarter penny) and half-crowns (two shillings and six pence) because if there's one thing I've learnt about finance, its that the more confusing things are, the easier it is to make a profit.

While in general quite confusing, I cannot help but notice, that they used to use better divisible numbers like 12, to go to the next bigger unit. I also read that Babylonians or whoever it was, used a system with base 60, even better divisible. I wonder how it would affect our daily lives, if we still had such better divisible numbers in use with money today. For example 60 cent make a euro or dollar or whatever. Of…

> Of course then it might not be called "cent" any longer.

Would probably be called a sextant, which would raise a few eyebrows in British politics if history is to go by.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#39

Post by StavrosK »

corobo wrote: post #22
ur-whale wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Design by committee, what could possibly go wrong.

In fairness Bitcoin wasn't designed by committee and it's up there with CFCs in how much of a detriment it is to the environment

Bitcoin uses energy. Energy is a detriment to the environment, but it doesn't have to be.

The problem isn't the energy usage, the problem is that we're bad at generating energy without killing the planet.

Re: Bank of England to explore a potential Central Bank Digital Currency

#40

Post by bitcoinmonger »

KaiserPro wrote: post #30

I've not really understood the need for a "digital" pound, the pound is pretty digital already. I can already have an entirely digital bank account from at least three "challenger" banks. There are also now at least two business accounts that also entirely virtual. "Faster Payments" (customer bank transfers) are delivered in seconds. I can see a need for speeding up BACS, and reducing the price of CHAPS, but apart fr…

This will be good for anyone interested in using modern cryptocurrencies, whilst also allowing governments to control access to accounts and adjust the money supply if necessary.

It's a win-win for everyone.

Also the energy required to secure the ledger will be dramatically reduced. Proof of work can be replaced by physical security, which is more energy efficient.

Anyone wanting to rewrite the ledger would need more power than the government has in protecting it.

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