Sorry, I meant the original Taler paper: https://git.gnunet.org/bibliography.git/plain/docs/taler2016space.pdf https://git.gnunet.org/bibliography.git/plain/doc

Sorry, I meant the original Taler paper: https://git.gnunet.org/bibliography.git/plain/docs/taler2016space.pdf https://git.gnunet.org/bibliography.git/plain/docs/taler2016.... >but there is nothing forcing that. Regulations can never be forced into a technology, they can merely be adopted. PCI-DSS exists as a regulation in different jurisdictions, but there is nothing forcing it either - its the contract your processor signs with their bank, and other many agreements similarly. An exchange exists to convert Fiat to Tokens. A merchant can only accept tokens signed from an exchange. The Fiat<>Kudo transfer happens on an exchange and requires traditional regulated finance rails. Could you build a cash-backed exchange? Yes, but then merchants accepting that specific exchange will need a way to exchange it back to fiat, and that doesn't work. There isn't a separate digital virtual currency in Taler. Taler is an electronic payment system that uses existing currencies (such as USD/EUR). Kudos is only used for the demo, but in a real deployment, it will be USD/EUR/etc.