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I find these discussions frustrating because the UK pound (like the US dollar, the euro, etc) is already digital. THe overwhelming majority of pounds in the UK
by Lazare 4y ago
I find these discussions frustrating because the UK pound (like the US dollar, the euro, etc) is already digital. THe overwhelming majority of pounds in the UK are just numbers in a database already.
So there's no information being conveyed here by saying "lets have digital pounds". Presumably there's a proposal to add or change something, but you've got to open up the PDF and start skimming to even get a hint of it, because the linked headline and summary is just meaningless.
Since the pound is already digital, the obvious path forward is some mixture of a government provided payment app, and/or government forced interoperability between existing payment apps, possibly augmented by government provided bank accounts either for the unbanked or possibly for everyone (cf "postal banking" and "narrow banking").
Looking at the PDF they seem(?) to have something fairly different in mind, but they do a terrible job of explaining why. Or what exactly they're proposing.
It's just exhausting trying to engage with a proposal this vapourous.
- walterbell 4y agoThe centralization inherent to CBDCs will lower costs and enable transaction-level kill switches that can be customized to human behavioral profiles. Previous CBDC threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30634245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30634245 (2022) & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27805709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27805709 (2021)
- cryptonector 4y ago> Presumably there's a proposal to add or change something, ... Presumably the change in question has to be to stop printing cash and minting coins and forbid cash transactions. There may be some cryptocurrency-like features too (sans anonymity), but I imagine that credit card processors won't like that.
- Lazare 4y agoAgain though, the dollars (and pound, and euro) are already overwhelmingly digital. I already don't carry cash on me, and make payments digitally. You don't need a new currency to allow removal of cash.