Live data from Hacker News

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

cointelegraph.com

141–150 of 157 posts

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

#141
post #114
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The goal was to understand how much cash remained in the system The RBI which prints the banknotes knows how much cash is in the system. I've heard a lot of nonsensical justifications of demonetization. This is by far the the worst. > but with 6 years of hindsight doesn't seem as bad. It kicked off India's digital economy Kick starting India's digital economy did not require bringing the physical economy to a fucki…

> This triggered mass adoption of phone payment apps,

I worked in the digital payments industry at that time. The sectoral growth was unprecedented during that period. Between Oct 2016 and Jan 2017, transaction value went up 40 times!

> UPI payments went from $1.5B in October 2016, to $10B the following month.

I stand corrected. The point I was trying to make was that it grew 600% that month, as opposed to 10-20% otherwise. To reach 140B today.

> Ah, the endless queues, the needless suffering, the lost jobs and destroyed lives, all made up for by the fact that the urban middle class now has the convenience of UPI!

It's not the urban middle class alone who have benefitted. People asking for handouts have UPI ids these days. $1.7T will flow through UPI over the next 12 months, even if you assume it stays at current levels. Credit cards would not have worked in India (if you leave out the wealthy), but UPI does.

> Which to repeat myself, did not require bringing the economy to a fucking standstill. And limitations on value of cash transactions aren't a new idea and predate demonetization.

The point is that transformation to a digital economy needs to be kick started. It'll take forever otherwise (if you study how various countries have done).

> Kick starting India's digital economy did not require bringing the physical economy to a fucking standstill.

a) How do you know, given that there's no precedent?

b) India still registered decent growth in 2016 and 2017. Economy wasn't in an "effing standstill".

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

#142
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

This is not that far fetched tbh.

I think what many societies have discovered in the past few years is, if a proposed authoritarian policy only (or just disproportionately) hurts "the other side", then half the country will abandon any principles they used to have so they can claim that it's actually a good policy to implement.

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

#143
Two years ago, digital ID, central bank and one currency was a fake news. Now it is not. No wonder that so called fake news are so popular.

Great documentary about this topic, State of control (2022) is here: https://player.vimeo.com/video/769876604

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

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe listen and draw your own conclusions? In this episode he uses fringe sources like the American Bankers Association. He does cover conspiracies, but some conspiracies are actually true. This appears to be one of them. His channel was removed from social media for questioning the ever changing and largely incoherent COVID narrative. [0] [1] But if you or anyone else finds a more comprehensive resource, please sha…

> Maybe listen and draw your own conclusions? That’s the thing, the same could be said of any random piece of media ever made, but I have neither the time nor the interest in going through all of it. There are plenty of quality programs out there, and I don’t want to realize I should have spent that time listening to In Our Time an hour into the show. I’m opposed to CBDCs. But this person generally seems to present h…

> That’s the thing, the same could be said of any random piece of media ever made, but I have neither the time nor the interest in going through all of it.

Then I am not sure what you are hoping to achieve with this kind of commentary. Why not just move on?

Should I not have shared the best podcast I have thus far found about CBDCs because it doesn't meet the ad hominem Google check? If that's the case, then that's a shame because a lot of good sources were swept up in COVID cancellation fever for no good reason.

> And I’m not sure what removal from social media has to do with whether or not he’s worth listening to.

Because the sources you're relying on that portray him as a conspiracy nut are the same ones that were cancelling every other person who had something to say about COVID that wasn't sanctioned by the CDC/NIH (Google).

Corbett's supposed crime that resulted in his cancellation was playing clips of Anthony Fauci making contradicting statements to the media days/weeks apart and turning it into a game of "simon says".

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

#146

As a Nigerian, one of my biggest goals is to save enough to invest in a second passport. Since the last administration took over, their policies have been spectacularly bad - and that's coming from me, a Nigerian (and African) who has only known bad government all his life. When COVID-19 kicked in and oil revenues dried up, the government turned on the printing presses and churned out an awful amount of Nairas. Like…

What second passport would you want?

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

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe listen and draw your own conclusions? That’s the thing, the same could be said of any random piece of media ever made, but I have neither the time nor the interest in going through all of it. There are plenty of quality programs out there, and I don’t want to realize I should have spent that time listening to In Our Time an hour into the show. I’m opposed to CBDCs. But this person generally seems to present h…

> That’s the thing, the same could be said of any random piece of media ever made, but I have neither the time nor the interest in going through all of it. Then I am not sure what you are hoping to achieve with this kind of commentary. Why not just move on? Should I not have shared the best podcast I have thus far found about CBDCs because it doesn't meet the ad hominem Google check? If that's the case, then that's a…

As I said in the parent comment (and as confirmed by the other commenter), he seems to present himself as a conspiracy theorist. One of the first search results was an AMA he did on r/conspiracy.

But you’re right, I’ll move on. I might even give the show a listen sometime. I just prefer looking at things from a more mainstream perspective first.

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

#150
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.

Programmable money is like programmable computation, there are infinite applications on the spectrum of good and evil. 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. https://cashessentials.org/us-considers-legislation-on-manda... > The Payment Choice Act is a bill that would require applicable retail b…

> If we are going to allow programmable money, we must allow competitors

The 'must' in the second part is more of something that you'd like governments to do, but not something that they in any way 'have' to do. I see vanishingly small chance of any government ever doing so because it would defeat the entire purpose of the central in CBDC.

Post reply on HN