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EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

taler.net

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Re: EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

#61

Post by actionfromafar »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #49
n_ary wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely care about privacy. Also, if I can pay the kebab shop with less fee with my phone(hopefully) rather than them putting up a note that “only cash”(because CC charges large fees), it’ll be an immediate win for me to avoid carrying wallet full of heavy coins and cash everywhere like medieval times.

If you believe that kebab shops, or any shops, that put up such signs are really about card fees then I have bridge to sell you...

They do though. I have been to several who refuse cards for payments below a certain (pretty low) amount.

Re: EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

#63

Post by eigenket »

rambambram wrote: post #60
eigenket wrote: post #46

My impression (which might be unfair since I haven't used the Taler system) is that this looks like a technically better but practically worse version of payment systems which already exist in parts of Europe like the Polish Blik, Swedish Swish, Norwegian Vipps and the one they have in the Netherlands (I forgot the name of that one). In "the real world" I really don't want to be dealing with a wallet of electronic ca…

> and the one they have in the Netherlands (I forgot the name of that one). iDeal you mean?

Maybe, I've never used the Dutch one.

Re: EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

#64

Post by pyrale »

> This payment system is different from current online payment methods, like credit cards or bank transfers, in that it offers privacy for the buyer: neither merchants nor banks can trace or link the payments.

Banks will love a solution that completely prevents them from implementing KYC/AML regulation they are required to follow.

Truly baffling that such a project manages, if their claims are true, to get public funding after years of crypto grift scandals.

Re: EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

#65

Post by pndy »

some-username wrote: post #51

I find it kind of cute that they set up this mock-up currency 'kudos' to toy around with it. ( https://demo.taler.net/en/ ) What makes it (more) cute is that you can use it to reserve entries in their GNS first-come-first-served service. ( https://fcfs.gnunet.org/ ) GNS being the GNU Name System which is a decentralized/p2p equivalent to DNS. ( https://www.gnunet.org/en/gns.html )

These examples under Essays feels obnoxiously dystopian; it's just a demo environment of course but I really hope that's not the feature where were heading into, in which every single link/piece of information on the Internet is locked behind payment.

Doomsaying aside, here in Poland nearly everything can be paid with BLIK payments system - whether it's something you purchase on the Internet or small groceries at shop around the corner. You can also withdraw/depo money by ATM or do a small transfer to someone's else phone number

https://www.blik.com/en

Re: EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

#66

Post by superzamp »

pyrale wrote: post #64

> This payment system is different from current online payment methods, like credit cards or bank transfers, in that it offers privacy for the buyer: neither merchants nor banks can trace or link the payments. Banks will love a solution that completely prevents them from implementing KYC/AML regulation they are required to follow. Truly baffling that such a project manages, if their claims are true, to get public fun…

Tbh, the hit to omniscient funds traceability is not that different from what some financial institutions started to accept with Stablecoins already, i.e. a model where KYC/AML happens at the edges but not within the transaction graph itself. It's pleasantly surprising to see this model getting acceptance in the regulatory spheres.

Re: EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

#67

Post by pyrale »

p4bl0 wrote: post #47
some-username wrote: post #17

People should know that 1. it's not based on any kind of blockchain, 2. it's not a currency, it's a payment system which you could use to transfer other currencies (euro, dollar, ...) and 3. unlike most blockchain-based currencies it offers anonymity (only for buyers, not for sellers, though)

Indeed, GNU Taler doesn't use a blockchain, as a blockchain cannot actually implement digital cash. In a blockchain, transactions are necessarily centralized — on a distributed ledger maintained using a peer-to-peer protocol, but the transactions themselves are still account-based —, so they are effectively equivalent to wire transfers, i.e., just accounting entries: they cannot take place between two offline parties…

> actually decentralized transactions between two offline parties can take place.

The schema they use to explain the system's mechanisms clearly shows an exchange that needs to be audited:

> Payments are made after exchanging existing money into electronic money with the help of an Exchange service, that is, a payment service provider for Taler.

That is, the transaction can be offline, but it eventually needs to pass through a central point to be effective.

Re: EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

#68

Post by some-username »

pndy wrote: post #65
some-username wrote: post #51

I find it kind of cute that they set up this mock-up currency 'kudos' to toy around with it. ( https://demo.taler.net/en/ ) What makes it (more) cute is that you can use it to reserve entries in their GNS first-come-first-served service. ( https://fcfs.gnunet.org/ ) GNS being the GNU Name System which is a decentralized/p2p equivalent to DNS. ( https://www.gnunet.org/en/gns.html )

These examples under Essays feels obnoxiously dystopian; it's just a demo environment of course but I really hope that's not the feature where were heading into, in which every single link/piece of information on the Internet is locked behind payment. Doomsaying aside, here in Poland nearly everything can be paid with BLIK payments system - whether it's something you purchase on the Internet or small groceries at sho…

Why I find it kind of cute is that those buys (GNS fcfs) are basically meaningless - in a p2p system everyone can just host a service like this.

Re: EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

#69

Post by littlestymaar »

p4bl0 wrote: post #47
some-username wrote: post #17

People should know that 1. it's not based on any kind of blockchain, 2. it's not a currency, it's a payment system which you could use to transfer other currencies (euro, dollar, ...) and 3. unlike most blockchain-based currencies it offers anonymity (only for buyers, not for sellers, though)

Indeed, GNU Taler doesn't use a blockchain, as a blockchain cannot actually implement digital cash. In a blockchain, transactions are necessarily centralized — on a distributed ledger maintained using a peer-to-peer protocol, but the transactions themselves are still account-based —, so they are effectively equivalent to wire transfers, i.e., just accounting entries: they cannot take place between two offline parties…

> In a blockchain, transactions are necessarily centralized — on a distributed ledger

This.

Re: EU NGI TALER will bring private and secure online payments to the Eurozone

#70

Post by littlestymaar »

Hamuko wrote: post #55
stevage wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's weird that no one ever made that model work. I think it was tried?

Flattr was a kind of a version of that (although billed as "donations"), and it recently shut down. https://flattr.com/

I tried to use flattr a few years back, but the UX was horrible and for something that needs to become ubiquitous to be useful, that's not the kind of mistake you can afford.
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