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Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

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Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#61

Post by chewzerita »

skybrian wrote: post #3
jonathan-adly wrote: post #2

It’s ironic that they named it project Hamilton. He is probably rolling in his grave now thinking that Jefferson would be finally proven right with CBDC and the insane ever increasing Public debt. "banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies," Thomas Jefferson

History hasn't been kind to either of Jefferson's opinions in that sentence. The US did abolish the central bank for a while and nothing good happened as a result. Also, military coups are a problem in many countries, but not the US.

> military coups are a problem in many countries, but not the US

I wonder why

Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#62

Post by SkipperCat »

dragonelite wrote: post #28
cryptica wrote: post #14

CDBCs are going to be a goldmine for hackers. If implemented as centralized systems, some hackers and insiders are going to have access to unlimited free money. The fact is that nobody, no group of people on this planet is trustworthy enough to implement such an important system. Such people don't exist. Such centralized system is guaranteed to be corrupted. This is why such important financial systems MUST be decent…

I have been cashless for pretty much a decade, I'm more interested in what smart money that can be programmed can do. Like can i get paid instantly for every KWH i deliver back to the grid via solar panels. Can my salary or hourly contract be streamed to my bank account. These sort of things are all possible in crypto.

Can you not get paid for every KWH you deliver to the grid right now? My friend has a solar power setup at his house and he gets credits to his bill when he produces more than he consumes. That would be pretty simple to make into an ACH to his bank account.

It just seems to me that everything you can do with crypto you can do with the existing financial system. Maybe not 100% of crypto's features, but easily what a huge majority of people and institutions rely on and use today.

Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#63

Post by krapp »

ur-whale wrote: post #59
pphysch wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does civilians owning firearms have to do with a well-trained military force taking over the seats of power?

> What does civilians owning firearms have to do with a well-trained military force taking over the seats of power? Such a military force would be facing a very well armed citizen-led guerilla response. Given the amount of private gun ownership in the US, holding on to power after a coup would prove a rather difficult proposition.

>Such a military force would be facing a very well armed citizen-led guerilla response.

Unless enough citizens were on the side of the coup. I don't know why no one ever seems to acknowledge that as a possibility, especially after Jan. 6. Gun owners are just as driven by politics and ideology as anyone else.

Plus just because you have a gun in a safe and maybe sometimes shoot watermelons in the backyard with it doesn't mean you'll be effective in guerilla warfare against an actual military. I know Americans like to bring up Afghanistan and Vietnam as examples of guerilla warfare succeeding against the US, but fighters in both cases still went through training that would break the average American gun owner.

Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#64

Post by SantalBlush »

tryptophan wrote: post #11
skybrian wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History hasn't been kind to either of Jefferson's opinions in that sentence. The US did abolish the central bank for a while and nothing good happened as a result. Also, military coups are a problem in many countries, but not the US.

Nothing good has happened after central banking was established either. It's been one financial crisis after another. Also fun fact - back when the US had private currencies, people WILLINGLY preferred to use them despite a gov currency existing. It is only after the government passed high taxes on these currencies(ie having to pay tax for each transaction to exchange them) that they went out of favor. If they were r…

>Nothing good has happened after central banking was established either. It's been one financial crisis after another.

The US financial crises--terrible as they are--are not even remotely comparable to the damage inflicted by a military coup. Putting these two things in the same category is a nonstarter.

Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#65

Post by ur-whale »

FWIW:

https://github.com/mit-dci/opencbdc-tx

Detailed architecture:

https://github.com/mit-dci/opencbdc-tx/blob/trunk/docs/archi...

Some remarks:

    - Seems to be implemented in C++
    - Looks like they reused bits and pieces from the Bitcoin code base (bech32, secp256k1, sha256)
    - Claim of being able to handle 1.7M TPS
    - Experimented with UTXO-style (Bitcoin-like) but seem to have bet on something called "unspent hashes" instead.
    - I found very little on things that matter (policy-related):
       - How is the "central authority" implemented
       - How is the coin supply managed

Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#66

Post by triangleman »

beefman wrote: post #44

"In our design users interact with a central transaction processor using digital wallets storing cryptographic keys. ... Despite using ideas from blockchain technology, we found that a distributed ledger operating under the jurisdiction of different actors was not needed to achieve our goals. Specifically, a distributed ledger does not match the trust assumptions in Project Hamilton's approach, which assumes that the…

Reading Matt Levine's latest column on this CBDC was sort of mind blowing. With a truly centralized digital currency the Fed would basically monopolize all bank deposits (why store money in the bank at all when your digital wallet is perfectly safe) and destroy the entire banking sector.

So they are forced to decentralize the currency to some extent, so that banks are the ones to actually issue the currency (after borrowing it from the fed).

Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#67

Post by culturestate »

ur-whale wrote: post #59
pphysch wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does civilians owning firearms have to do with a well-trained military force taking over the seats of power?

> What does civilians owning firearms have to do with a well-trained military force taking over the seats of power? Such a military force would be facing a very well armed citizen-led guerilla response. Given the amount of private gun ownership in the US, holding on to power after a coup would prove a rather difficult proposition.

> Such a military force would be facing a very well armed citizen-led guerilla response.

As well-armed as the citizenry may be, the military is infinitely more so - they have, you know, tanks and planes and smart bombs - and in this fantasy civil war-esque scenario I don’t think the junta would be shy about exploiting that advantage.

Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#68

Post by zozbot234 »

krapp wrote: post #63
ur-whale wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does civilians owning firearms have to do with a well-trained military force taking over the seats of power? Such a military force would be facing a very well armed citizen-led guerilla response. Given the amount of private gun ownership in the US, holding on to power after a coup would prove a rather difficult proposition.

>Such a military force would be facing a very well armed citizen-led guerilla response. Unless enough citizens were on the side of the coup. I don't know why no one ever seems to acknowledge that as a possibility, especially after Jan. 6. Gun owners are just as driven by politics and ideology as anyone else. Plus just because you have a gun in a safe and maybe sometimes shoot watermelons in the backyard with it doesn…

The flip side is that many people in the military would absolutely sabotage the coup. Keep in mind that everyone in the military is bound by an oath to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic.

Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#69

Post by tadfisher »

DennisP wrote: post #60
beefman wrote: post #44

"In our design users interact with a central transaction processor using digital wallets storing cryptographic keys. ... Despite using ideas from blockchain technology, we found that a distributed ledger operating under the jurisdiction of different actors was not needed to achieve our goals. Specifically, a distributed ledger does not match the trust assumptions in Project Hamilton's approach, which assumes that the…

This doesn't sound all that different from the banking system we have now.

The key words here are "central transaction processor". Being able to interact with the financial system without going through intermediaries would eliminate an incredible amount of waste in the form of most of the payments industry.

Re: Boston Fed releases report, source code of digital currency prototype study

#70

Post by [deleted] »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #32
tryptophan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing good has happened after central banking was established either. It's been one financial crisis after another. Also fun fact - back when the US had private currencies, people WILLINGLY preferred to use them despite a gov currency existing. It is only after the government passed high taxes on these currencies(ie having to pay tax for each transaction to exchange them) that they went out of favor. If they were r…

> Also fun fact - back when the US had private currencies, people WILLINGLY preferred to use them despite a gov currency existing. I'm not much of a historian, but are you referring to company stores? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store > Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go // I owe my soul to the company store — Johnny Cash, Sixteen Tons

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