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This is great. I'm all for the convenience of paying with a card, and use it for 99% of my transactions, but cash has a place in a free society. Without it, the

This is great. I'm all for the convenience of paying with a card, and use it for 99% of my transactions, but cash has a place in a free society. Without it, the state and the banks have the means to shut off a person's participation in society. That's too much power going to unaccountable people. To say nothing of the surveillance a cashless society affords as well. A cashless society is incompatible with a free society.

robertlagrant 4y ago
I am not a blockchain person, but I think this was one of the better philosophical reason to like the blockchain. It seems to allow digital money that's not easily revocable by an authority. Of course in practice it probably is, but I appreciate the theory.
- eru 4y ago
  Most blockchain money is pseudonymous and very easy to track. Eg bitcoin has a globally readable track of each transaction ever. You can use enough cryptography to make blockchain transactions anonymous. But I think you can use the same cryptography to make non-blockchain electronic money anonymous, too.
  - reidjs 4y ago
    Easy to track but not easy for a government to prevent transactions
    - unicornmama 4y ago
      It’s hell of easy to prevent transaction. You publish a wallet blacklist and prohibit all exchange services from processing tainted bitcoins.
      - Quindecillion 4y ago
        That's not transacting on the Bitcoin blockchain though. Once you have access to Bitcoin on-chain and have other people willing to transact directly through Bitcoin, with no fiat intermediaries like exchanges... yeah, there's literally nothing anyone can do to stop the transaction from going through (eventually). The end goal with Bitcoin is to bypass all the permissioned fiat rails eventually.
        oblio 4y ago
        > with no fiat intermediaries like exchanges What's the volume of Bitcoin traded outside of exchanges? 0.0001%?
        oblio 4y ago
        Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it wrong :-)
        ashwagary 4y ago
        >What's the volume of Bitcoin traded outside of exchanges How could you ever know? A group of people could trade paper wallets with 1000s of Bitcoin trillions of times and no record of it would show up on chain.
        eru 4y ago
        Well, that's off-chain and requires trust. So it's arguably not bitcoin. (It requires trust, because how do you prevent double spending attacks? Someone can just print out the same paper wallet twice. You need to move the funds to an address you control to be sure.)
        ashwagary 4y ago
        >So it's arguably not bitcoin. It's always Bitcoin in any scenario we can think of since value never ever leaves the chain, only the person with control of the on-chain value changes. >Someone can just print out the same paper wallet twice. I used "paper wallet" as a simple place holder, many tamper resistant one time use solutions exist, like Opendime.
  - koonsolo 4y ago
    Instead of giving an example that doesn't work, maybe give an example that does work: Monero.
- Dma54rhs 4y ago
  I agree with the premise but in practice something like Bitcoin would be perfect for a police state. Easily trackable, just have to block the endpoints to repress people, forever history.
  - Quindecillion 4y ago
    There are several ways to obfuscate transaction history on origins, such as coinjoins or simply opening a few private Lightning Network channels and pushing sats a couple of hops through them to unidentified end addresses.
- livre 4y ago
  Nobody here has addressed the actual issue of Blockchain in a cashless society. You need internet for using crypto, your internet company accepts only legal currency (card, cash, etc) and since there's no chash and you have been cut off from using cards you can't pay for your internet bill and that means it'll eventually get cut and you won't be able to use crypto. Crypto needs cash to work, because people need cash or card for utilities, those companies won't accept your make believe money like the little shop in the corner does.
davidguetta 4y ago
Yes. Its crazy how much people dont realize that thing can change fast, an authoritarian gov comes and take your rights in the name of "security". Just look at russia, iran, china, or even also kanye west / andrew tate who had their account frozen.
- tchvil 4y ago
  No need to name only exotic or unfriendly places, Canada applied the same technique against its 'Freedom Convoy' truckers.
moremetadata 4y ago
If the cash machine knows the serial numbers of your banknotes that its issued, and you then go and spend some of that money with someone, when those bank notes come back into the banks hands, they can use this to build up a map or pattern of behaviour. Are you comfortable with your bank knowing who you hand cash to? In another situation, most on here will be familiar with FIFO and LIFO for buffers, and whilst most cash registers take a serialised bank note and hand it back out in a LIFO manner, sometimes the register operator will take bank notes and put them at the bottom of the pile. This creates a new state, LILO as its gone to the bottom of the pile of bank notes. In addition why did the shop or business engage in that activity with some people and not others? Is there something shady taking place or are they displaying knowledge to others? How does that mess around with the banking systems ability to build payment networks what central banks would call the velocity of money? A cashless society would make some crimes less possible like muggings, but could it also escalate the extremity of muggings? For example if fingerprints are required with a card or smartphone, would muggings evolve becoming more extreme with events like cutting off peoples fingers? It also highlights the fact that's society is not configured/setup properly because such events like muggings are taking place. I think coinage should be dropped (ie non serialised money) and banks should start displaying the serial numbers of bank notes much like the blockchain, so that people can track and trace where all the money is going. For example, celebrities helping out less fortunate people with autographed products including things like NFT's could evolve, because a celebrity could hand out cash to someone which has its immediate utilitarian value as currency, but just like collectors demonstrate, that bank note could actually be worth more to a collector willing to pay x times more for that celebrity bank note which the less fortunate currently has in their possession. Ergo could poverty be reduced with this method or would human behaviour change and less celebrity worshipping occur? And would less celebrity worshipping be a bad thing or not?
- mejutoco 4y ago
  > when those bank notes come back into the banks hands, they can use this to build up a map or pattern of behaviour. Are you comfortable with your bank knowing who you hand cash to? I am comfortable with it, since by the time those bank notes come into the bank, they do not know how many times, and between whom, they have changed hands. There is also plausible deniability: the suspect guy bringing cash into the bank with numbers I had might have gotten them from me spending them at the supermarket, or from me getting change at the restaurant, and the restaurant owner doing business with him. There are many gaps in this argument.
catseyechandra 4y ago
This is good, but switzerland tend to spread this kind of news to build a very progressive image, things inside of switzerland is a bit different, i.e. this swiss intel/security hiccup: https://www.strauss-engineering.ch/posts/sevices.html https://www.strauss-engineering.ch/posts/sevices.html (in french).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Double_a_92 4y ago
While I generally agree, practically it's probably not a huge difference compared to what we have now. Most people keep their money in banks, instead of cash. So if the government wants to target you they can already do it, no matter if you have a few 1000 in cash or not.
- zirgs 4y ago
  Yup - and salaries are paid directly to bank accounts. Mortgage payments are automatically charged directly from bank accounts as well. If your government freezes your bank account - you're fucked.
dools 4y ago
> the state and the banks have the means to shut off a person's participation in society The state already has this, it's called prison.

robertlagrant 4y ago

I am not a blockchain person, but I think this was one of the better philosophical reason to like the blockchain. It seems to allow digital money that's not easily revocable by an authority. Of course in practice it probably is, but I appreciate the theory.

eru 4y ago
Most blockchain money is pseudonymous and very easy to track. Eg bitcoin has a globally readable track of each transaction ever. You can use enough cryptography to make blockchain transactions anonymous. But I think you can use the same cryptography to make non-blockchain electronic money anonymous, too.
- reidjs 4y ago
  Easy to track but not easy for a government to prevent transactions
  - unicornmama 4y ago
    It’s hell of easy to prevent transaction. You publish a wallet blacklist and prohibit all exchange services from processing tainted bitcoins.
    - Quindecillion 4y ago
      That's not transacting on the Bitcoin blockchain though. Once you have access to Bitcoin on-chain and have other people willing to transact directly through Bitcoin, with no fiat intermediaries like exchanges... yeah, there's literally nothing anyone can do to stop the transaction from going through (eventually). The end goal with Bitcoin is to bypass all the permissioned fiat rails eventually.
      - oblio 4y ago
        > with no fiat intermediaries like exchanges What's the volume of Bitcoin traded outside of exchanges? 0.0001%?
        oblio 4y ago
        Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it wrong :-)
        ashwagary 4y ago
        >What's the volume of Bitcoin traded outside of exchanges How could you ever know? A group of people could trade paper wallets with 1000s of Bitcoin trillions of times and no record of it would show up on chain.
        eru 4y ago
        Well, that's off-chain and requires trust. So it's arguably not bitcoin. (It requires trust, because how do you prevent double spending attacks? Someone can just print out the same paper wallet twice. You need to move the funds to an address you control to be sure.)
        ashwagary 4y ago
        >So it's arguably not bitcoin. It's always Bitcoin in any scenario we can think of since value never ever leaves the chain, only the person with control of the on-chain value changes. >Someone can just print out the same paper wallet twice. I used "paper wallet" as a simple place holder, many tamper resistant one time use solutions exist, like Opendime.
- koonsolo 4y ago
  Instead of giving an example that doesn't work, maybe give an example that does work: Monero.
Dma54rhs 4y ago
I agree with the premise but in practice something like Bitcoin would be perfect for a police state. Easily trackable, just have to block the endpoints to repress people, forever history.
- Quindecillion 4y ago
  There are several ways to obfuscate transaction history on origins, such as coinjoins or simply opening a few private Lightning Network channels and pushing sats a couple of hops through them to unidentified end addresses.
livre 4y ago
Nobody here has addressed the actual issue of Blockchain in a cashless society. You need internet for using crypto, your internet company accepts only legal currency (card, cash, etc) and since there's no chash and you have been cut off from using cards you can't pay for your internet bill and that means it'll eventually get cut and you won't be able to use crypto. Crypto needs cash to work, because people need cash or card for utilities, those companies won't accept your make believe money like the little shop in the corner does.

davidguetta 4y ago

Yes. Its crazy how much people dont realize that thing can change fast, an authoritarian gov comes and take your rights in the name of "security". Just look at russia, iran, china, or even also kanye west / andrew tate who had their account frozen.

tchvil 4y ago
No need to name only exotic or unfriendly places, Canada applied the same technique against its 'Freedom Convoy' truckers.

moremetadata 4y ago

If the cash machine knows the serial numbers of your banknotes that its issued, and you then go and spend some of that money with someone, when those bank notes come back into the banks hands, they can use this to build up a map or pattern of behaviour. Are you comfortable with your bank knowing who you hand cash to? In another situation, most on here will be familiar with FIFO and LIFO for buffers, and whilst most cash registers take a serialised bank note and hand it back out in a LIFO manner, sometimes the register operator will take bank notes and put them at the bottom of the pile. This creates a new state, LILO as its gone to the bottom of the pile of bank notes. In addition why did the shop or business engage in that activity with some people and not others? Is there something shady taking place or are they displaying knowledge to others? How does that mess around with the banking systems ability to build payment networks what central banks would call the velocity of money? A cashless society would make some crimes less possible like muggings, but could it also escalate the extremity of muggings? For example if fingerprints are required with a card or smartphone, would muggings evolve becoming more extreme with events like cutting off peoples fingers? It also highlights the fact that's society is not configured/setup properly because such events like muggings are taking place. I think coinage should be dropped (ie non serialised money) and banks should start displaying the serial numbers of bank notes much like the blockchain, so that people can track and trace where all the money is going. For example, celebrities helping out less fortunate people with autographed products including things like NFT's could evolve, because a celebrity could hand out cash to someone which has its immediate utilitarian value as currency, but just like collectors demonstrate, that bank note could actually be worth more to a collector willing to pay x times more for that celebrity bank note which the less fortunate currently has in their possession. Ergo could poverty be reduced with this method or would human behaviour change and less celebrity worshipping occur? And would less celebrity worshipping be a bad thing or not?

mejutoco 4y ago
> when those bank notes come back into the banks hands, they can use this to build up a map or pattern of behaviour. Are you comfortable with your bank knowing who you hand cash to? I am comfortable with it, since by the time those bank notes come into the bank, they do not know how many times, and between whom, they have changed hands. There is also plausible deniability: the suspect guy bringing cash into the bank with numbers I had might have gotten them from me spending them at the supermarket, or from me getting change at the restaurant, and the restaurant owner doing business with him. There are many gaps in this argument.

catseyechandra 4y ago

This is good, but switzerland tend to spread this kind of news to build a very progressive image, things inside of switzerland is a bit different, i.e. this swiss intel/security hiccup: https://www.strauss-engineering.ch/posts/sevices.html https://www.strauss-engineering.ch/posts/sevices.html (in french).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Double_a_92 4y ago

While I generally agree, practically it's probably not a huge difference compared to what we have now. Most people keep their money in banks, instead of cash. So if the government wants to target you they can already do it, no matter if you have a few 1000 in cash or not.

zirgs 4y ago
Yup - and salaries are paid directly to bank accounts. Mortgage payments are automatically charged directly from bank accounts as well. If your government freezes your bank account - you're fucked.

dools 4y ago

> the state and the banks have the means to shut off a person's participation in society The state already has this, it's called prison.