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>"The project would create an electronic form of cash issued by the European Central Bank, designed to sit alongside banknotes and the payments services offered

>"The project would create an electronic form of cash issued by the European Central Bank, designed to sit alongside banknotes and the payments services offered by commercial banks. Supporters argue it would give citizens direct access to digital “public” money — something that, for now, largely exists only in the form of cash." I don't get how does the creation of a new "digital Euro" supposed to replace Visa and Mastercard, when they're just payment processors transactioning the existing euros, not specialized digital ones. So shouldn't the EU build a Visa/Mastercard competitor instead of a new currency? What am I missing here? Also this breaks my brain: >"Brussels proposed a digital form of cash that could be used both online and offline. Navarrete, by contrast, is pushing for an offline-only model." How is digital cash supposed to work offline-only? By offline do they mean without a centralized authority(like crypto) or without internet connectivity?

crote 8mo ago
> So shouldn't the EU build a Visa/Mastercard competitor instead of a new currency. We had one. Europay International was the "E" in the "EMV" smart payment card standard, and they used to dominate the European payment card industry. They merged with MasterCard in 2002.
- toyg 8mo ago
  It was a different time. I reckon the same acquisition, today, would not get approval from the much-beefed-up EU regulatory authority (i.e. the competition commissioner). It's too late to fix the past, but we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future, if we continue to work towards federal structures.
graemep 8mo ago
I remember reading about proposals and experiments with anonymous digital cash that predated blockchain (or at least bitcoin becoming big) and worked fully offline. I have do idea how they were supposed to work.
- direwolf20 8mo ago
  They probably didn't - that's why we have bitcoin instead. Nobody knew how to solve the double spend problem until bitcoin.
  - graemep 8mo ago
    Bitcoin does not solve it offline. Blockchain is distributed, but very much online.

crote 8mo ago

> So shouldn't the EU build a Visa/Mastercard competitor instead of a new currency. We had one. Europay International was the "E" in the "EMV" smart payment card standard, and they used to dominate the European payment card industry. They merged with MasterCard in 2002.

toyg 8mo ago
It was a different time. I reckon the same acquisition, today, would not get approval from the much-beefed-up EU regulatory authority (i.e. the competition commissioner). It's too late to fix the past, but we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future, if we continue to work towards federal structures.

graemep 8mo ago

I remember reading about proposals and experiments with anonymous digital cash that predated blockchain (or at least bitcoin becoming big) and worked fully offline. I have do idea how they were supposed to work.

direwolf20 8mo ago
They probably didn't - that's why we have bitcoin instead. Nobody knew how to solve the double spend problem until bitcoin.
- graemep 8mo ago
  Bitcoin does not solve it offline. Blockchain is distributed, but very much online.