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I read about Taler a few years back, and I'm excited to see that it is still under development. In my opinion, for those of us who aren't anti-government, Tale

I read about Taler a few years back, and I'm excited to see that it is still under development. In my opinion, for those of us who aren't anti-government, Taler represents an ethical future of digital spending: It is interoperable, so unlike our current Visa situation, the free market should be able to bid down payment fees to a fair rate. It's insane to me that Visa and Mastercard have basically positioned themselves as exclusive middlemen on the vast majority of digital transactions, in an age when so much commerce necessarily is digital. It offers privacy that Visa / PayPal / etc cannot. It makes income traceable in a way that bitcoin does not, to facilitate lawful taxation. It is inherently scalable in a way that bitcoin arguably is not (bitcoin has offchain scaling mechanisms, sure, but if you're being honest it's a stretch) It's not introducing a new currency or coin that will be endlessly speculated on, unlike most every crypto solution out there (even stablecoins rely on eth or others for transaction fees)

olah_1 6y ago
It sounds like Taler is not competing with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just as much about improving money in general as it is about preserving and transferring wealth. Before WWI, a large part of the world was all on the gold standard. I think a Bitcoin standard would be similar to that but with improvements to consensus. Perhaps Taler is more competing with Lightning networks or decentralized exchanges?
- helen___keller 6y ago
  Taler isn't competing with bitcoin per se, but it's competing with a particular vision of the bitcoin network (or any blockchain) as "the future of digital payments". Lots of people are into bitcoin as a digital asset, as some kind of inflation-protecting security, etc. For these purposes, Taler is completely orthogonal and not a competitor at all.
- 99_00 6y ago
  How is bitcoin an improvement on money? Why is a standard on a physical or digital asset desirable, especially when the asset is rare. Wouldn't this unnecessarily restrict monetary policy?
  - megameter 6y ago
    Bitcoin(and by extension the rest of the cryptocurrency space) is an enabler for speculation - in the specific case of BTC, on the price action of the asset as more is mined, and on the cost of mining itself. Speculation's action - which is always crude when looking up close - has the effect of building a market where there once was nothing, and as BTC has grown crowded speculative activity has proceeded towards projects promising(if not necessarily delivering) additional features and social value. One of the major limitations of a pure debits-and-credits system like Taler is that it has limited speculative interest. It can't be gamed for returns on investment, so it can't initiate the boom-and-bust cycle.
    - 99_00 6y ago
      How Bitcoin levels of speculation desirable for a currency? If my national currency was going up like bitcoin spending would decrease a lot. Why you'd you buy a car today when you can buy it in a month and spend 20% less? The economy would stop functioning. And when the value of currency falls people want to spend it as fast as possible.
nullc 6y ago
Taler proposes an extraordinarily unethical panopticon, where unaccountable entities (both commercial and governmental) without any due process can surveil every transaction you make. Engage in the "wrong" kind of commerce and after the political winds change-- maybe you get rounded up and executed. Regardless of your political alignment, one can't really look at the governance of many nations and say with confidence that you can trust that they won't change in a way which profoundly disrespects your human rights. Taler misleads people into thinking that its private by claiming that only merchants are surveilled. But every time you pay you both were previously a recipient and you are paying to someone else who relieves. Monitoring reception is equivalent to monitoring everyone, and taler's surveillance is realtime and always active. > It makes income traceable in a way that bitcoin does not, to facilitate lawful taxation. Taxation is based on self-reporting, whistle-blowing, and serious criminal penalties for evasion, not on invasive realtime state surveillance into the private transactions of individuals. Facilitating "lawful taxation" by pervasive surveillance of everyone who receives a payment is like preventing sexual assault by requiring a camera in every bedroom streaming in realtime back to government.
- kderbe 6y ago
  This contradicts one of the claimed principles of Taler, "Protect the privacy of buyers". Can you please explain how the example you gave would be possible with Taler, in a way that wouldn't be with crypto currency? (off-topic: thank you for Opus.)
- igorkraw 6y ago
  What do you think of Bitcoins/Ethereum etc. public ledgers?
  - nullc 6y ago
    In theory Bitcoin could provide a reasonable amount of privacy by leaving identities unlinked, in practice it doesn't. (Etherum's 'accounts' are extremely privacy toxic way beyond Bitcoin) Of course, if one wants to trust other entities one can already easily use chaumian cash w/ Bitcoin. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5302025.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5302025.0 That works similar to Taler except no integrated spyware. This approach can even be implemented with multiparty security relatively easily, so that the funds are protected by a majority threshold rather than just requiring a single point of failure.
runeks 6y ago
Comparing Taler to Bitcoin is not appropriate since Bitcoin could be the very monetary unit that is used as the denomination of payment amounts on the Taler network. In other words, Taler is a protocol that is deployed on top of Bitcoin, and does not compete with Bitcoin itself. Bitcoin is (intended to be) a form of money — just like USD, EUR, gold, silver. The Taler network needs a unit of account (numeraire) to denominate amounts in, and this is what money is used for. Tail itself cannot function without a monetary unit since it’s a payment system (a way to move money).
- helen___keller 6y ago
  You are correct - I should have been more explicit, but I was using comparing Taler as a system to move arbitrary money against the Bitcoin network[0], which is a system to move a specific money (Bitcoin the coins), or the various blockchain networks, which do similar for other tokens (including securitized fiat, as in stablecoins) [0] "the Bitcoin network", meaning the use of blockchain transactions to facilitate payments, or off-chain schemes to do the same with on-chain settlement (as in lightning network)
als0 6y ago
> It makes income traceable in a way that bitcoin does not, to facilitate lawful taxation. Can you explain this a bit more? I thought all Bitcoin transactions are completely traceable.

olah_1 6y ago

It sounds like Taler is not competing with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just as much about improving money in general as it is about preserving and transferring wealth. Before WWI, a large part of the world was all on the gold standard. I think a Bitcoin standard would be similar to that but with improvements to consensus. Perhaps Taler is more competing with Lightning networks or decentralized exchanges?

helen___keller 6y ago
Taler isn't competing with bitcoin per se, but it's competing with a particular vision of the bitcoin network (or any blockchain) as "the future of digital payments". Lots of people are into bitcoin as a digital asset, as some kind of inflation-protecting security, etc. For these purposes, Taler is completely orthogonal and not a competitor at all.
99_00 6y ago
How is bitcoin an improvement on money? Why is a standard on a physical or digital asset desirable, especially when the asset is rare. Wouldn't this unnecessarily restrict monetary policy?
- megameter 6y ago
  Bitcoin(and by extension the rest of the cryptocurrency space) is an enabler for speculation - in the specific case of BTC, on the price action of the asset as more is mined, and on the cost of mining itself. Speculation's action - which is always crude when looking up close - has the effect of building a market where there once was nothing, and as BTC has grown crowded speculative activity has proceeded towards projects promising(if not necessarily delivering) additional features and social value. One of the major limitations of a pure debits-and-credits system like Taler is that it has limited speculative interest. It can't be gamed for returns on investment, so it can't initiate the boom-and-bust cycle.
  - 99_00 6y ago
    How Bitcoin levels of speculation desirable for a currency? If my national currency was going up like bitcoin spending would decrease a lot. Why you'd you buy a car today when you can buy it in a month and spend 20% less? The economy would stop functioning. And when the value of currency falls people want to spend it as fast as possible.

nullc 6y ago

Taler proposes an extraordinarily unethical panopticon, where unaccountable entities (both commercial and governmental) without any due process can surveil every transaction you make. Engage in the "wrong" kind of commerce and after the political winds change-- maybe you get rounded up and executed. Regardless of your political alignment, one can't really look at the governance of many nations and say with confidence that you can trust that they won't change in a way which profoundly disrespects your human rights. Taler misleads people into thinking that its private by claiming that only merchants are surveilled. But every time you pay you both were previously a recipient and you are paying to someone else who relieves. Monitoring reception is equivalent to monitoring everyone, and taler's surveillance is realtime and always active. > It makes income traceable in a way that bitcoin does not, to facilitate lawful taxation. Taxation is based on self-reporting, whistle-blowing, and serious criminal penalties for evasion, not on invasive realtime state surveillance into the private transactions of individuals. Facilitating "lawful taxation" by pervasive surveillance of everyone who receives a payment is like preventing sexual assault by requiring a camera in every bedroom streaming in realtime back to government.

kderbe 6y ago
This contradicts one of the claimed principles of Taler, "Protect the privacy of buyers". Can you please explain how the example you gave would be possible with Taler, in a way that wouldn't be with crypto currency? (off-topic: thank you for Opus.)
igorkraw 6y ago
What do you think of Bitcoins/Ethereum etc. public ledgers?
- nullc 6y ago
  In theory Bitcoin could provide a reasonable amount of privacy by leaving identities unlinked, in practice it doesn't. (Etherum's 'accounts' are extremely privacy toxic way beyond Bitcoin) Of course, if one wants to trust other entities one can already easily use chaumian cash w/ Bitcoin. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5302025.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5302025.0 That works similar to Taler except no integrated spyware. This approach can even be implemented with multiparty security relatively easily, so that the funds are protected by a majority threshold rather than just requiring a single point of failure.

runeks 6y ago

Comparing Taler to Bitcoin is not appropriate since Bitcoin could be the very monetary unit that is used as the denomination of payment amounts on the Taler network. In other words, Taler is a protocol that is deployed on top of Bitcoin, and does not compete with Bitcoin itself. Bitcoin is (intended to be) a form of money — just like USD, EUR, gold, silver. The Taler network needs a unit of account (numeraire) to denominate amounts in, and this is what money is used for. Tail itself cannot function without a monetary unit since it’s a payment system (a way to move money).

helen___keller 6y ago
You are correct - I should have been more explicit, but I was using comparing Taler as a system to move arbitrary money against the Bitcoin network[0], which is a system to move a specific money (Bitcoin the coins), or the various blockchain networks, which do similar for other tokens (including securitized fiat, as in stablecoins) [0] "the Bitcoin network", meaning the use of blockchain transactions to facilitate payments, or off-chain schemes to do the same with on-chain settlement (as in lightning network)

als0 6y ago

> It makes income traceable in a way that bitcoin does not, to facilitate lawful taxation. Can you explain this a bit more? I thought all Bitcoin transactions are completely traceable.