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Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

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Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#41

Post by ano-ther »

ssivark wrote: post #9

Meh. The article expends zero effort in actually engaging with the Reserve Bank of India's motivations or the CBDC design [1], and is filled with shallow comments about the roll-out in other countries. This is a very important topic as it has the potential to reshape banking/economics on the timescale of decades. For a good down-to-earth understanding of "layer 1" -vs- "layer 2" money, refer the following post [2]. I…

Here is a bit more on the international efforts for CBDCs

https://www.bis.org/about/bisih/topics/cbdc/mcbdc_bridge.htm

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33865185

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#42

Post by zx8080 »

lzaaz wrote: post #10
pjkundert wrote: post #7

They will use a major crisis to force adoption.

Thank the Lord this wasn't ready to deploy during covid. They are going to prepare it for the next crisis.

In some places long before covid. Go to swedish coffee shop in 2018 and try buying a cup of coffee with cash. No luck. Digital payments only.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#43

Post by alkonaut »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #22
alkonaut wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any good implementation of a central bank digital currency should have some anonymity handling, or it's not really a good cash replacement (Unless the goal all along was monitoring, which of course will be the case in some countries). Being able to spend $500 on something without anyone knowing is important. As is not beig able to launder $5M without anyone noticing. "Tomatoes, not diamonds" is the key feature here.

That's the kicker; I don't believe there's any government that wants anonymous digital cash. If anything, they want to be the only ones that can track it.

Now you are assuming that "governments" and "citizens" are two disjoint groups with different agendas. That's a really bleak way of looking at it, at least in functioning democracies. I'd certainly protest loudly if some sort of anonymity wasn't part of the plan at every step.

I was happy to see at least some footnotes from a recent pilot CDBC mentioning this. https://www.riksbank.se/globalassets/media/rapporter/e-krona...

It's bascically exactly how the bank+card+cash system works. When I purchase a car with a bank transfer, it's easily traceable. When I purchase a guitar with my card, it's traceable. But if I really want to buy something untracably I go to an ATM and get cash. Similarly in any CDBC that citizens shouldn't be protesting loudly about, you can simply grab cash-like tokens. They might have an amount cap, but so does cash. You could never really go and fetch an unlimited amount of cash without having authorities ask questions due to KYC requirements.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#44

Post by nmridul »

blackoil wrote: post #20
ssivark wrote: post #9

Meh. The article expends zero effort in actually engaging with the Reserve Bank of India's motivations or the CBDC design [1], and is filled with shallow comments about the roll-out in other countries. This is a very important topic as it has the potential to reshape banking/economics on the timescale of decades. For a good down-to-earth understanding of "layer 1" -vs- "layer 2" money, refer the following post [2]. I…

Paper money is a small percentage of total money, and a much smaller percentage in terms of actual transactions. Most of the money is already digital.

Maybe transaction wise paper money is still a small percentage.

But my understanding (correct me if wrong) is that the total money running in the country at any momemnt is never more than what is printed.

With digital money the central bank can issue it without the cost to print. As per (1) it costs around Rs 10 to Rs 17 to print Rs 100 note and have to be reprinted once they get damaged.

(1) https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/will-digital-currenc...

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#46

Post by lzaaz »

fab1an wrote: post #12

It's surprising to see that there are liberal proponents of this. You don't have to be a raging libertarian to see the risks of unlocking this much financial reach for governments. We (in the West) may now mostly live under reasonable governments, but there's obviously no guarantee that this won't change (including towards your ), and implementing social credit score systems and other dystopian things would be much e…

It's not surprising. Liberals want the government to take money from people to fund itself. A digital currency allows them to do that much more efficiently.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#47

Post by lottin »

influxmoment wrote: post #38
lottin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realise that some of the people behind CBDCs are Bitcoin developers?

They get money to make some software but clearly aren't proponents of a totalitarian system

I don't know about totalitarian systems. They are involved with CBDCs. How do you know they aren't proponents of CBDCs?

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#48

Post by potamic »

ssivark wrote: post #9

Meh. The article expends zero effort in actually engaging with the Reserve Bank of India's motivations or the CBDC design [1], and is filled with shallow comments about the roll-out in other countries. This is a very important topic as it has the potential to reshape banking/economics on the timescale of decades. For a good down-to-earth understanding of "layer 1" -vs- "layer 2" money, refer the following post [2]. I…

Most examinations of CBDC paint a grim picture of things to come, mostly in terms of yielding absolute power to the central bank. As with any situation involving power, with good intentions you can do wonderful things, with bad intentions you can do equally horrifying things. In the Indian context, the latter is of particular concern, especially when one man can demonetise the whole country overnight on a whim.

There was a good discussion here on CBDC sometime back -

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27805709

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#49

Post by spaceman_2020 »

m4rtink wrote: post #15
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #13

Cashless societies terrify me. So easy to control people when you can decide what and with whom they can transact with.

Well, with most salaries going to bank accounts it's half way there already, isn't it ?

It's never a problem if its one of many options.

It only becomes a problem if it's mandated. If you can only get paid/pay digitally, it becomes incredibly easy to track you.

There are some people who have a legitimate, non-criminal reason to hide their work.

Re: Nobody’s using CBDCs – India’s piloting one anyway

#50

Post by potamic »

Ekaros wrote: post #18
fab1an wrote: post #12

It's surprising to see that there are liberal proponents of this. You don't have to be a raging libertarian to see the risks of unlocking this much financial reach for governments. We (in the West) may now mostly live under reasonable governments, but there's obviously no guarantee that this won't change (including towards your ), and implementing social credit score systems and other dystopian things would be much e…

I never understood this argument. It is not like governments can't tell the banks and payment processor not to accept payments or freeze all funds of certain people. Courts can already order automatic confiscation in cases like bankruptcies and so on.

Friction in a process can be an amazing deterrent and prevents you from abusing power en masse. Whenever there is a cost to doing something, it demands prudence.
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