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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

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Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#781
post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any reasons we can't have both KYC and privacy/security ?

Is this a real question?

I could see some sort of certificate driven approach.

Customers and merchants generate a keypair and CSR. The CSR by design contains no personal information. You submit the public key/CSR and seperate identifying information to a KYC authority.

The government generates a signed certificate the bank can use to open an account, and the customer or merchant signs their transaction requests using their private key to associate them with the account.

The bank has a paper trail showing KYC was performed, but does not have any personal information about the participants, almost akin to the old "numbered Swiss account" cliche.

Ideally, the KYC authority deletes the personal data after issuing certificates, but I'd expect it would be more "information can be released under court order" or "revocation policy blah blah blah".

That's the level of tradeoff I'd expect is politically viable. Bank of America doesn't know you're buying hentai, but if it turns out the 1000-year-old character is actually 12, a court can lift the veil.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#782
post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty much what I was asserting in my original post, my question was if there was some additional mechanism beyond simple market forces. It's not inconceivable (nor magical in any way) to imagine treaties that would allow an actual conversion from one currency to another, where USD go in one side and Euro come out the other. Situations like this have existed in the past: currencies have been converted when,…

It's simpler than you are imagining. In practice, anyone can make USD go in one side and EUR come out the other. It's just the notion that something is "destroyed" which is wrong. If I owe you x USD, you can call me and we can agree I now owe you y EUR. If my name is "JP Morgan Chase Bank", it's really easy. And, the "m1 money supply" just changed. But, m1 is kind of nonsense because... it includes checking account d…

I appreciate the replies, and asking chatgpt is good advice.

It took some prompting to get it to say "It's really not rocket science." though.

https://chatgpt.com/share/67fa2c5f-d940-800a-bdad-b723e763e0...

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love that you tell us how amazing the government run digital currency but end it with a throw away statement about how the open source version will never "stand a chance". Just like how no one uses Linux and Firefox died 20 years ago.

Cryptocurrency != OSS.

I would be interested to know what your definition of free and open source software is.

But for the record Bitcoin and it's cousins are the exact definition of free and open source software as it is both free and open source. Just because you don't like it doesn't change the facts.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not true everywhere but in all the towns I have lived in the homeless were well aware of organizations that provide assistance. No need to carry a card about it.

Indeed, and there's usually a reason why they're on the street instead of going to those organizations (justifiable to a random other person or not).

My experience is they are already using those services but most of those services can only provide so much. In my state most people on the street already have Medicaid and food stamps but it isn’t like that is enough to get you a place to live or a job. The programs and services available can keep someone alive but are rarely comprehensive enough to deal with chronic mental and physical health issues that impact the ability of someone to thrive in a market economy. Even the most rightwing 20th century economist recognized that the state will need to step in for housing and employment for some part of the population.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#785
post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simpler than you are imagining. In practice, anyone can make USD go in one side and EUR come out the other. It's just the notion that something is "destroyed" which is wrong. If I owe you x USD, you can call me and we can agree I now owe you y EUR. If my name is "JP Morgan Chase Bank", it's really easy. And, the "m1 money supply" just changed. But, m1 is kind of nonsense because... it includes checking account d…

I appreciate the replies, and asking chatgpt is good advice. It took some prompting to get it to say "It's really not rocket science." though. https://chatgpt.com/share/67fa2c5f-d940-800a-bdad-b723e763e0...

The condescension is towards people in finance pretending there is a lot of complicated stuff going on, not towards people trying to parse it.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they can also decide you can't have a license to drive a car, that you can't fly, that you can't own a home, that you can't pass a background check, that you can't have a social security number, that you owe an exorbitant amount of tax, that you should be in jail, that your immigration status is revoked because you wrote a news article they don't let, etc etc etc Your government already has a monopoly on violenc…

The answer to 'bad things exist' is not 'therefore nothing can ever be better'. You fix things 1 step at a time. Removing the hand of the state from the levers and dials of the value transfer system is a good thing.

Those things exist because we want them to. You call it bad that there's a government that decides I own my house and nobody else can take it. I call that a good thing. The government can already freeze your bank account with no problem, they don't need Brazil's system to do it.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance, the conversation is supposed to be about cryptocurrency technology, but you're talking about the gross financial companies that operate in cryptocurrency as if they ARE cryptocurrency. Not just one feature of its existence. Common conflation.

> the conversation is supposed to be about cryptocurrency technology, > but you're talking about the gross financial companies that operate in cryptocurrency as if they ARE cryptocurrency. That's because the middlemen are inevitable and they work the way they do for a reason—governments won't let them work any other way. Cryptocurrency is a technological solution for a human problem, and you can't analyze the impact…

...sure I can.

Because I've done the reading.

Which is ironically what's keeping us from adopting proper food, air, healthcare, and financial systems. Everyone doing the reading.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the conversation is supposed to be about cryptocurrency technology, > but you're talking about the gross financial companies that operate in cryptocurrency as if they ARE cryptocurrency. That's because the middlemen are inevitable and they work the way they do for a reason—governments won't let them work any other way. Cryptocurrency is a technological solution for a human problem, and you can't analyze the impact…

...sure I can. Because I've done the reading. Which is ironically what's keeping us from adopting proper food, air, healthcare, and financial systems. Everyone doing the reading.

This is the Hermione Granger approach to broomstick flying, and it doesn't work.

Re: Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

#789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...sure I can. Because I've done the reading. Which is ironically what's keeping us from adopting proper food, air, healthcare, and financial systems. Everyone doing the reading.

This is the Hermione Granger approach to broomstick flying, and it doesn't work.

Did you just hand-wave me from fiction? lol

Anyway, I think I meant "unironically", in retrospect.

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