Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC • Hacker News Board

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#131

Post by armatav » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

_milgram224 wrote: post #104

jjgreen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't hear people saying cash protects freedom, but is does protect privacy . Can it be taken away, yes of course, if people don't care about privacy (and most don't) and don't use it then it can, and that seems to be a project in progress.

This is exactly correct, and also exactly why blockchain-based cryptocurrency has utterly failed to deliver on its promises to bring freedom from the tyrannies of fiat currency. In fact, the technology has been pivotal in ushering in this CBDC madness. Returning to the gold standard was always the best solution available, and we just ignored it to our own peril. It preserves both privacy and universal acceptability,…

Except the whole point is that there’s a digital gold standard now.

But in this case you can’t modify the gold-ledger to perform what is effectively fractional reserve gold-banking with Bitcoin.

Give it 30 years, there’s no stopping math.

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#132

Post by Schroedingersat » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 3:55 PM UTC

HPsquared wrote: post #82

hikingsimulator wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I can't see living in Europe without an IBAN for instance -- and the card that comes with one. And that's not something the government is enforcing. Same in the US, you can't not have a credit card because of the credit score system there. Use of a credit card is mandatory because you need it to financially "exist."

There's a big difference between being able to borrow money, and being able to function.

Not when "being able to borrow money" is used as a proxy for employability and whether to rent to someone.

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#133

Post by hndamien » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

nirimda wrote: post #51

akira2501 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are infinite applications on the spectrum of good and evil. Which means it should be firmly in the hands of the people and never in those of a centralized government, in particular, never one which collects taxes directly from the people. > If we are going to allow programmable money, we must allow competitors (e.g. citystate crypto, nationstate crypto, non-CB crypto) and incumbent payments like cash. Well..…

> Which means it should be firmly in the hands of the people and never in those of a centralized government I don't understand this sentence. In political discourse, "the hands of the people" usually means the people corporately i.e. the nation through their representatives in parliament. If the people can't control the currency through parliament and government, how do you stop private or foreign interests from taki…

Have you heard of Bitcoin?

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#134

Post by LocalH » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

hotcoffeebear wrote: post #107

oifjsidjf wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You serious?

“Customers should be encouraged to use alternative channels (Internet banking, mobile banking apps, USSD, cards/POS, eNaira, etc.) to conduct their banking transactions.” Yes, i’m serious. I don’t see anything directed to use strictly CBDC here. They seem like to tackle tax evasion for business and individuals (read it like: traceable) In many countries there are limits on what you can do with cash already.

If cash did not already exist, the authorities would never allow it to be created and used in today's world.

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#135

Post by kornhole » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

zhte415 wrote: post #26

kornhole wrote: post #7

This is programmable money where the government controls how and when you can spend it. It does not take long for most people to figure out how this restricts their freedom. I guess they will make it a bargain in some way such as charging a higher rate for cash as they are doing here. This may be a training ground for other governments to learn how to force or incentivize us to use their CBDC's.

I was surprised at charging a higher rate for cash, until reading the article where it didn't mention that. What was mentioned was a service fee for withdrawing cash above the limits from bank branches. Which also seemed surprising - to reduce the demand for cash-cash, restrict the supply. That that article mentions 85% of cash in circulation is held outside banks does not also seem alarming, it'd be interesting to r…

If the government or banks impose fees on getting cash, the cost of using cash relatively to digital transactions increases doesn't it?

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#136

Post by retrac » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #64

kornhole wrote: post #7

This is programmable money where the government controls how and when you can spend it. It does not take long for most people to figure out how this restricts their freedom. I guess they will make it a bargain in some way such as charging a higher rate for cash as they are doing here. This may be a training ground for other governments to learn how to force or incentivize us to use their CBDC's.

China was the leader in the push to pure cashless society. Cash still works, but only in small amounts. Lots of HNews'ers claim cash is the only way to keep your freedoms, but that simply glosses over the fact that even if you have piles of cash under your bed, you can't do anything meaningful if the government decides to prevent/limit banks from accepting cash deposits - say in a 5 year timeframe. After a while, bus…

The inconvenience of "my piles of money will no longer be legal tender in five years" and "all of my money is locked in accounts I cannot access starting immediately" are in entirely different categories.

I experienced this directly, when the electronic payment system recently collapsed in my part of Canada for ~2 days. I fortunately had a small amount of cash on me. Without it, I would have been unable to buy lunch, top-up my nearly expired phone plan, and then buy a train ticket and go about my normal day. It was also fortunate for my friend, who I lent $20. Can't take cash out at the ATM either obviously. I would have been stuck at home all day. I wouldn't have been able to give a small amount of money to my friend. Being able to lock people out of their bank accounts is far more specific, and disabling, than regulations on cash could be.

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#137

Post by jpalomaki » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #64

kornhole wrote: post #7

This is programmable money where the government controls how and when you can spend it. It does not take long for most people to figure out how this restricts their freedom. I guess they will make it a bargain in some way such as charging a higher rate for cash as they are doing here. This may be a training ground for other governments to learn how to force or incentivize us to use their CBDC's.

China was the leader in the push to pure cashless society. Cash still works, but only in small amounts. Lots of HNews'ers claim cash is the only way to keep your freedoms, but that simply glosses over the fact that even if you have piles of cash under your bed, you can't do anything meaningful if the government decides to prevent/limit banks from accepting cash deposits - say in a 5 year timeframe. After a while, bus…

Some businesses are already going cashless (here in Finland, have understood it is also happening on Sweden).

As most people anyways pay card/phone/app, it’s not worth of trouble to deal with cash. Handling cash gives you security problems (robberies) and adds costs (need to regularly take money to bank).

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#138

Post by jeswin » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 5:28 PM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #81

walterbell wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India's approach was to cancel large-denomination banknotes, but it did not have the intended effect, https://archive.ph/ynouY > India’s prime minister, announced in November that Rs1,000 ($16) and Rs500 notes would no longer be legal tender, he suggested that corrupt officials, businessmen and criminals — popularly believed to hoard large amounts of illicit cash — would be stuck with “worthless pieces of paper”. But…

> India's approach was to cancel large-denomination banknotes, but it did not have the intended effect The objective was not to cancel large-denomination banknotes, given that even larger notes were issued in their place (2000 Rupee notes). The printing of those notes were well underway when "demonetization" was announced. The goal was to understand how much cash remained in the system, and to move away from a cash-b…

Thanks unmole for correcting these numbers. (Too late to edit now). - Nov 2022 is 140B (accurate) - Oct 2016 was 150m not 1.5B (incorrect) - Nov 2016 was 1B not 10B (incorrect)

The point still stands. UPI grew 600% in Oct-Nov 2016, and 10-20% per month afterwards - to reach 140B as of last month.

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#139

Post by hackingforfun » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

MerelyMortal wrote: post #125

sph wrote: post #78

This is good for Bitcoin.

It's better for Monero - what people thought Bitcoin was: actually private.

My interest in Bitcoin (since 2014) has never been because I thought it was private. My interest is because of its potential to transform the financial system. I actually think the public auditability of Bitcoin is one of its strengths as a technology.

Re: Nigeria bans ATM cash withdrawals over $225 a week to force use of CBDC

#140

Post by hackingforfun » Wed, Dec 07, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

hotcoffeebear wrote: post #110

dmichulke wrote: post #60

Once we have CBDCs and they are obligatory, the case for Bitcoin will be clear.

They will probably push harder to make difficult/ illegal using decentralized cryptocurrencies. They will thank to all the opensource projects that helped to mature CBDC, and kick them out.

It's possible CBDC's will only be launched in certain countries. I'm hoping at least America will embrace crypto instead of pushing it offshore (and of course also figure out the regulatory aspects to reduce/eliminate the bad actors in the space). Time will tell.