Yeah if the government made their own Monero clone I’d like that but how likely is that?
Taler and Monero really don’t have much in common. I don’t think these kind of decentralized "crypto"currencies are suitable really for much anything. I do think a currency should come from a central authority, because ultimately that authority is what gives it legitimacy and guarantees its value. But that doesn’t mean all transactions in that currency have to be on some kind of ledger, whether that ledger comes with extra privacy protections like Monero or not. Centralize the minting process, but make transactions work just by means of exchanging coins. Kind of like you can already give someone your Bitcoin not by sending an actual transaction but just by giving them the private key (not completely equivalent, because Taler makes that whole process actually convenient and secure for both ends).
Or maybe you didn’t actually mean Monero clone when saying Monero clone, but just any kind of good CBDC. Then well, if our standpoint is just that the government is gonna mismanage everything and make our lives worse no matter what, then yes that’s possible but as long as it hasn’t happened yet I see no reason why not to try influence the process. We may disagree on that point of course.
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Thats a broadening of the concept of CBDC that makes it totally meaningless. By that token we have had CBDCs for decades now… 
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Feel free to elaborate on that thought…
No. The current methods of digital payment are not digital currency. They are simply the promise (of banks and other entities) of payment in currency. It is a critical difference because no currency is actually being stored digitally. All currency is still physical and in a bank vault somewhere (or is credit, in which case it doesn’t exist physically or digitally)
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No, one cannot withdraw large amounts in currency, nor can one pay large amounts in physical currency. There is no promise of convertibility into cash. Also, banks have accounts with the central bank where they hold currency that doesnt exist physically, nor is it credit
The central bank from my understanding functions similarly to a normal bank with additional monetary policy responsibilities, so the accounts would still represent either physical currency or debt.
Exactly. I would hope that in a discussion about CBDC people would at least know the basics about how money works. (Or alternatively just read my posts, because I more or less already explained that above.)
@Reset0609 if indeed your point here was that something like debit/credit card payments, PayPal, etc actually are something like a CBDC, then ok I would dismiss that. With all of these you trading debts, you’re not actually exchanging money. If I pay $20 with debit card at a store, the $20 that my bank owes me is now owed by some other (or the same) bank to the merchant. At no point did I own $20 and gave these to the merchant.
No, one cannot withdraw large amounts in currency, nor can one pay large amounts in physical currency. There is no promise of convertibility into cash.
Maybe you don’t notice, but that argument bolsters what @exaCORE and I am saying. If the “money” on anybody’s bank accounts is actually money owned by them, why would there be any potential issue with withdrawing that? Hell the bank would be happy to give it back to you, after all it’s a hassle to store and keep it safe. But no, actually withdrawing from a bank account == bank repaying a debt that they have to you. And then it’s clear why they might not always want to do that.
So yeah, that’s why I defined CBDC as carefully as I did. It needs to be a digital currency, not just digital debt certificates. The actual money needs to be in a digital format and that money in this format legitimized through law (and by extension then the central bank) for something to be called a CBDC.
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No, you are implying that as it traditionally has worked the source of value is the physical currency:
If that was the case one could use physical currency to pay regardless of amount and circumstance. Yet I cannot use it to repay the government more than 500€ or any other entity more than 2000€
When the law states that the only payment method thats valid for larger amounts is not physical, then the source of value is already digital. The “actual money” is the accounts that banks hold in the central bank, not the notes and coins
At least in the US, this isnt the case. However it would seem that the rule specifically targets individuals, not businesses, so the points made earlier still stand.
What makes it seem that way? Obviously it also applies to businesses, in fact those rules were motivated by businesses, its not individuals that regularly have to pay such amounts…
So, any curency that works differently from the US Dollar is a CBDC? Its always interesting when Americans just assume things everywhere work similarly to how they do in their country. That leads to some hilariously misguided conversations (to say the least)
Mostly because they would consider that a hassle. Not because of how the money works. And if you have actual physical currency, there will probably always be a financial institution that is happy to help you facilitate said transfer. I don’t see the argument here. At least not the one you think you’re making. Yes, the actual currency we use right now exists only in physical form and is pretty inconvenient and therefore costly to handle. That is basically one of the main reasons (if not the main one) why people might want CBDCs. Because right now even the government would rather trade debt.
When the law states that the only payment method thats valid for larger amounts is not physical, then the source of value is already digital. The “actual money” is the accounts that banks hold in the central bank, not the notes and coins
Yup, and right now it doesn’t. There’s no law that says “the only payment method thats valid for larger amounts is not physical”. There might be a provision by something like the tax department (not sure if you’re referring to that specifically or to something else, but doesn’t exactly matter) that they don’t want cash, but that doesn’t go against the fact that cash is currently the only currency.
However it would seem that the rule specifically targets individuals, not businesses, so the points made earlier still stand.
Not an expert in legal theory but we’re comparing apples with bananas here. Just because murder is not allowed doesn’t mean you cannot have a death penalty and so on. Sure, on first glance these seem to be related conceptually, but that’s about it. In the end it doesn’t matter what standard the government holds itself to anyway.
So, any curency that works differently from the US Dollar is a CBDC? Its always interesting when Americans just assume things everywhere work similarly to how they do in their country. That leads to some hilariously misguided conversations (to say the least)
Ah, and you’re sure you have the perfect “American on the internet” detector? US culture is just something that many people can somehow relate to or at least have some common knowledge about. Why would I or someone else use examples, analogies and so on from our random home country when 99% of the audience won’t appreciate them? Ok, but as long as you’re sure you know what a CBDC is then good on you. Now you could read any of the definitions available on the internet or from the institutions that actually are involved in planning and developing them and/or the policies surrounding them, or not. Whatever you think is more worth your while. I think I have said pretty much everything on the topic I want to for now anyway. Thanks for your insight.
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Mate, no one would want to touch it. Anything over 2000€ is a world of pain for any bank to take it, you need to very conclusively prove how you got it and that you have paid any applicable taxes on it.
Do explain all the debt that has no physical backing then
Here in Portugal it sure does, law 92/2017: https://www.antram.pt/attachments/legislacao/Lei%2092-2017.pdf
Its actually 3000€ for payments in the private sector (they were thinking of reducing it but it didnt go ahead) and, as stated, 500€ for any government entity.
I have a degree in American culture and literature, my detector is probably better than most
Thats a strawman. What analogies and examples you use has nothing to do with making blanket assumptions that for some unexplained reason the rest of the world mirrors your own reality. Notice how readily you just assumed that a law that definitely exists was certainly not within the scope of reality 
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Well apparently not (although i am an american your conclusions were incorrect). i was simply musing about how the regulation compares to the US. Also, i would say that we can probably agree that the US and EU’s system of currencies are not fundamentally different, so if we agree that the US doesn’t use a CBDC, then it follows that the EU doesn’t rely on a CBDC. Obviously, this isn’t a perfect argument, but it was what I was getting at.
for my other comment about businesses, just because individuals are one level removed from the currency doesn’t change the nature in which value is stored within the currency.
Sure, my point was precisely that you do not need a CBDC to eliminate physical currency
But theres no distinction between business and individuals! (unless the business is a bank). When businesses, whether its B2B or B2C are allowed to reject physical currency for any amount or forced to by law if more than a certain amount, how is that the source of value?
Ok, so it seems that I might have been slightly wrong in my previous answer regarding central bank holdings (at least in the US, I can’t guarantee that this is true for all countries): according to the Federal Reserve’s site:
A CBDC is a digital form of central bank money that is widely available to the general public.
“Central bank money” refers to money that is a liability of the central bank. In the United States, there are currently two types of central bank money: physical currency issued by the Federal Reserve and digital balances held by commercial banks at the Federal Reserve.
While Americans have long held money predominantly in digital form—for example in bank accounts, payment apps or through online transactions—a CBDC would differ from existing digital money available to the general public because a CBDC would be a liability of the Federal Reserve, not of a commercial bank.
So it seems like there is some sort of digital central bank currency, but only for some cases (digital balances that are only available for commercial banks). However, according to the definition above, the current methods of digital payment are not considered CBDC because they are not the liability of the central bank, they are the liability of the individual banks.
Because the systems that utilize the digital payment systems are simply a record of who is owed physical currency by whom. If it were a true CBDC, digital payment could be done without that step (aka, actual currency being transferred)
That is a fair point.