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Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lazzurs 4y agoIn shock news consultants advised that spending more money on consultants would be a good idea.
- Havoc 4y ago>need I can see way they might want it, but unclear why it is specifically needed?
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- burlesona 4y agoInteresting topic but there’s not much in the article beyond the headline. The only given rationale is that the BoE might need to issue a digital currency or else “Big Tech” might end up “controlling money.” Perhaps there’s a better article with more insight, but from this alone I get the feeling this is may just be politicians creating pork for consultants.
- AmericanChopper 4y agoI work in a sort of tangential field, and know a lot of people who are involved with digital currency related public policy. The governments motives for taking an interest in this are basically the exact opposite of the motives of decentralized digital currency proponents. Decentralized digital currency offers the potential for increased anonymity, and a lack of central control/regulation/oversight/ect… Centralized digital currencies offer governments highly increased potential for surveillance, regulation and policing. They create the ability for the central authority to monitor and control the use of money in a far more fine grained manner than the existing financial systems do. All of the use cases that I hear talked about are focused around these themes, with the threat of decentralized digital currencies undermining these capabilities motivating a lot of the interest.
- alchemist1e9 4y agoThe ultimate irony will be the harder governments try to push CBDCs the more they will increase demand for Bitcoin. Which sounds like better money: 1. money that can expire. be tracked 100% and censored. be auto taxed. auto inflated. or 2. money that has limited supply. is permission-less and uncensored. and no single party can control. It’s the ultimate foolishness of governments to believe the will win that competition. That leads to the proposal they try to ban the 2nd type, but yet again, ironically, that will only increase the demand for it.
- AmericanChopper 4y ago> It’s the ultimate foolishness of governments to believe the will win that competition. I don’t think it’s foolishness at all. The government today has much more power than it did when I was a child. When did anybody ever succeed in reversing this trend? This type of regulation is perfectly poised for success as well, as most people will be unaffected by it, and most people won’t even have any motive to understand the concepts involved. The big financial players don’t really care either, because their roll in the system isn’t really threatened by most of this.
- alchemist1e9 4y agoExcept with Bitcoin it needs all governments everywhere to coordinate in banning it. It would require extensive intrusive control of the internet. It seems incredibly unlikely that democratic governments will succeed in suppressing Bitcoin and promoting CBDCs.
- AmericanChopper 4y agoBanning Bitcoin has never been necessary. If you want to do business in the UK (or any other place), then you need to comply with the rules of their financial institutions. That means doing the KYC, complying with the AML rules, and using whatever currency the central government issues. The government doesn’t need to promote anything. They are the ones who make the rules.
- nmca 4y agoA huge proportion of crypto projects by count and an embarrassing proportion by market cap are scams. Nonetheless, I really hope someone cracks the remaining crypto issues (scalability, identity, ux, anonymity, governance protocols) well enough to provide sufficiently stable infrastructure for gvts to bootstrap off instead of rolling their own. I worry about the centralization of power otherwise.
- password4321 4y agoNo government wants financial anonymity for the governed.
- jesusofnazarath 4y ago[dead]
- mitthrowaway2 4y agoThere are two C's in CBDC, but none of them stand for "crypto".
- namaria 4y agoAll these issues have been solved already by the banking system. It's remarkable how people who believe in cryptocurrencies as a silver bullet cannot see they are just re-implementing an existing system, and stumbling upon all the problems we already solved for as a society, without adding anything of value. Yes, it's automated and abstract and makes you feel smart. The fundamental problem here is that a clean slate favors the most powerful players.
- cbeach 4y ago> Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak asked the BoE to look into the case for a CBDC in 2021 when he was finance minister Rishi’s father in law is founder of Infosys. I just checked infosys.com. Their lead headline was “What’s next for U.K. Public Sector Digital Services” https://www.infosys.com/uk/public-sector/insights/digital-government-services.html https://www.infosys.com/uk/public-sector/insights/digital-go... The U.K. public doesn’t need a CBDC. Those of us who’ve seen the sinister consequences of CBDCs in China are vehemently against them. It’s only Government agencies and their dubiously procured private contractors that want CBDCs
- alchemist1e9 4y ago> Those of us who’ve seen the sinister consequences of CBDCs in China are vehemently against them. What, if any, change in opinion on Bitcoin, would you you say those people have had after seeing those sinister consequences?
- lockhouse 4y agoI understand the advantages of this for the government. It will be much easier to track and control how we spend our money and ensure that we pay every last possible cent of taxes. What is the advantage for me as a citizen?
- rbera 4y agoI suppose ideally your money can’t be stolen? E.g., if someone hacks you or something similar, the government can invalidate that currency. Plus reduced money laundering, since it’s tracked, which theoretically reduces crime and makes it easier to track. Personally I only see physical currency being deprecated over the next several decades, considering most people don’t really care about privacy anymore (including me, to be fair).
- eddsh1994 4y agoIt's 2032. Covid Alpha variant is running rampant. In an attempt to prevent Americans breaking mandatory isolation electric cars have been disabled unless authorised by your neighbourhood state leader and all non-online transactions have been blocked.
- rbera 4y agoI’m not saying this is necessarily a good thing. When I say I don’t care about privacy, I mean that I don’t use VPNs, I don’t use ProtonMail, I don’t disable cookies or JS, I don’t use cash—all because I value convenience. Is this short-sighted? Maybe, but I am in a position where I (generally speaking) trust the government. That’s not true of everyone of course.
- eddsh1994 4y agoAnd, key here, you trust the government now. If a government you trust erodes privacy over time & then a government you don't like gets into power you're screwed.
- password4321 4y ago
- mnd999 4y agoNeither have demonstrated much competence recently, so I wouldn’t bet on it.
- youngtaff 4y agoWe have one, it’s called the sterling Seriously I don’t think I touched more than £50 in paper money since the start of the pandemic… everything is via debit / credit card or bank transfer Even when my teenager owes me money he sends it to me via his banking app talking to mine via bluetooth
- isthisthingon99 4y agoThe point there being that the bank is the middleman not the government. Maybe the same thing given how incestuous things are sometimes.
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago> The point there being that the bank is the middleman not the government. The current UK government is not going to be the one to "expand the role of government", eliminate the private sector and avoid allowing "private enterprise" (i.e. their pals and donors in big business) a role (i.e. a cut). They're ideologically opposed to that. Mr Sunak, The current PM has ties to banking, he's not going to leave them in the cold. Like he does with pensioners who can't afford heating. Grandparent is correct: currency is already digital. The majority of my GBP transactions are digital now - they are not pieces of paper with picture of the late Queen changing hands, they are database records, mediated by a "buy" button in the web browser, or the tap of a card onto a reader.
- isthisthingon99 4y agoAll governments will expand the role of government. Can you find me one that has ever decreased its scope in a meaningful and permanent way?
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y agoNevertheless, there are political parties that claim to believe in "small governments" along with "free markets", "individual achievement" and other buzzwords that mean they'll enrich their pals in business, and cut anything that helps poor people. The current UK administration is very much one of those. They will (ideologically) shrink certain aspects of the state by "outsourcing" or handing it over to private companies. e.g. If you think that the welfare and healthcare aspects of the UK state are currently "expanding the role of government" then you're misinformed. If you think that there hasn't been "austerity" for government services in the last few years, then you don't know the UK at all. Banking will be likewise, they don't believe in meaningful financial regulation.
- Kukumber 4y agoHaha, love reading stories like this, considering all my past comments on the matter and the origin of bitcoin kept getting flagged
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoCrypto was always mis-marketed as decentralised. It’s not. The American banking system is decentralised. Credit is created and balances maintained at the edges. Blockchain is centralised. This brings many efficiencies. But it also empowers those at the centre.
- Waterluvian 4y agoBe careful not to be distracted by the technical implementation. Centralization is about control. And by being highly regulated, it’s super centralized. Personally I believe this is an incredibly good feature, not a bug.
- gruez 4y ago>Blockchain is centralised. You lost me here. What exactly about "blockchain" is centralized? The fact that there's a central ledger?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> that there's a central ledger? Yes. There is no central ledger for the American banking system. There is a super-powered federal government. But the network’s topology is fundamentally decentralised.
- wesapien 4y agoCan you elaborate how the American banking system? What does a central bank have to do with decentralization?
- worik 4y agoBanks act independently. There are rules and boundaries set by the central bank, but the create credit on their own initiative and do not have to justify or record each transaction witt a central authority Block chain keeps everything together in one database. I think that is the sense that banks are decentralized despite a central bank
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- slackfan 4y agoI look forward to the articles about government abuse of digital currencies being shouted down as insane conspiracies in the next 20 years or so. Good luck, UK, good luck.
- nektro 4y agoDebit cards are as digital as government money needs to get
- worik 4y agoThe Reserve Bank of New Zealand has been thinking about this too https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/have-your-say/2021/future-of-money-central-bank-digital-currency https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/have-your-say/2021/future-of-money-...
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- omnicognate 4y agoWhy is this entire comment page about crypto/blockchain? This has nothing to do with that.
- worik 4y agoI have read all the comments here (always a pleasure) People's greatest fear seems to be control by the state I fear that too, but I fear private power more. Private power is accountable to none but the owners. Where I live the state can be held politically accountable. It is an imperfect system, and we the people are forever contesting control of the state with private power, but we have agency in that struggle Private power is much more scary now
- alchemist1e9 4y ago> People's greatest fear seems to be control by the state > I fear that too, but I fear private power more. Are there a lot of examples in history of private power controlling large populations that you could share? Oddly my recollection of history seems to include just a few of governments controlling and mass murdering populations but I’m struggling on the private power ones a bit …
- credit_guy 4y agoWill a 51% attack be able to wipe out trillions? China and Russia must be smiling.
- mister_tee 4y agoMy understanding, anyone is welcome to correct: the 51% attack doesn't apply, but that's because there is a central party with full control from the start. CBDCs are digital currencies but do not have to be cryptocurrencies with distributed consensus, blockchain, proof of work, etc. Instead they are likely to be completely centralized; at an (absurd) extreme a global Excel sheet with edit access enabled for the Treasury Secretary and Fed Chair.
- credit_guy 4y agoBut then how is it different from regular currencies? Take the US dollar. It's mostly numbers in databases. Physical cash (dollar bills and coins) is a tiny fraction of the total amount of money in circulation. By now all major currencies are "digital", and most likely all non-major currencies too.
- motohagiography 4y agoA CBDC is merely a tool of oppression. It needs to be said, and it is wrong to allow their collaborators in media and politics to act surprised when the oppressiveness of the scheme is revealed. I think that governments have mostly given up on the polite fiction that they serve their citizenry, and their logic today comes down to the minimum coalition necessary to maintain their seat of power. A computational currency reduces that coalition to a tiny oligarchy. The progress of CBDC's will likely rhyme a lot with the origins of Facebook and Linkedin, where there was open aggression and campaigns to discredit people who declined to adopt them, and today there are people on social media, and those who are not. Vaccine passports revealed the ugly and hysteria prone sadism of ostensibly normal people, and while nobody is perfect, these cetralizing technologies elevate the absolute worst aspects of human behavior as they compete to climb over one another to ingratiate themselves with compliance to it.
- analognoise 4y agoSo if you protest the wrong thing, they can stop your ability to buy groceries. Wrong think is immediately punishable by clicking a button.
- phendrenad2 4y agoHow does that work? Please elaborate using technical language.