The digital euro has enraged half of Brussels (but there is great alternative path)

General News
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CBDC (central bank digital currencies) is fresh new topic to me, I have not learnt much about it yet, but as I see privacyacademy.com often talks about digital currencies as huge threat to privacy and freedom, so this article have caught my attention today:

I copied important bits:

As bronzed Eurocrats return from summer holidays to face the usual September onslaught of lobbyists in Brussels, this year they’ll find an unlikely interest group waiting at their doors: The European Central Bank.

[…]

It’s pushing the digital euro because it argues that sitting idle makes the European Union too reliant on U.S. credit card giants Mastercard and Visa to handle cross-border transactions. Worse yet, data-hungry tech companies such as Meta, Apple or X could try for a piece of the payments pie, leaving Europe at the mercy of foreign interests.

The arrival of United States President Donald Trump has only heightened anxieties, especially since the White House has shown little restraint in pressuring companies to achieve his goals. Trump also signed the Genius Act, which aims to turbocharge certain crypto assets called stablecoins.

[…]

The ECB got serious about creating one in 2019 after Facebook owner Meta tried and failed to introduce its own global virtual currency for its 3 billion users in the form of a stablecoin.

[…]

People would use the virtual money to pay for goods and services, or lend to friends. The difference is that digital euros would most likely be stored on a wallet-like application on your smartphone.

[…]

The big difference is that the digital euro would be central bank-issued legal digital tender that, in theory, doesn’t require a commercial bank’s involvement — which is quite revolutionary.

[…]

ECB would have a record of how many digital euros you possess, this makes it even more secure than physical cash — which can more easily be stolen, lost or destroyed.

[…]

On paper, no banks or payment companies need be involved — although in practice, they would need to participate in the digital euro’s distribution.

In other words, a digital euro would break the private sector’s hold on digital payments.

[…]

MEPs […] have heeded concerns that governments could use the digital euro for snooping on people’s payments — a notion the ECB has trashed.

[…]

Many within the banking and financial industry, meanwhile, have branded the project “a solution looking for a problem” […] Its introduction could also stifle future innovation by dictating the future direction of the EU’s payment industry, they argue.

[…]

Navarrete has called the digital euro “a last resort” and “a nuclear threat” that’ll force the industry to develop a cross-border payment system before the bill is ready.

[…]

Government officials in the Council of the EU […] aim to finalize their negotiating position on the digital euro bill by year-end. Their involvement has the ECB on edge, too — especially as the Council wants to have the last say on how many digital euros a citizen can hold at any one time

[…]

Privacy-minded governments, such as Germany and the Netherlands, want the highest safeguards against payment surveillance; while the Belgian government has made it clear that it will not support the digital euro if it can’t be used offline.

[…]

Central bankers have long relied on lofty speeches and fireside chats to influence policymaking. But that hasn’t worked with the digital euro.

[…]

All that presages a fierce political debate over the coming months

Fundamentally, most problematic thing seem to be:

  • Centralized control of money and payments, and everything that can go wrong with it on a large scale.

But at the same time there is another EU funded, open source, decentralized and private alternative for payments instead:

Do politicians know there is a lot better alternative to achieve the same goal of getting off foreign big tech? (Instead of making bad situation worse with unprecedented money and payments centralized control)

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And there is a nice way to fund implementation of Taler alternative for somebody who has ideas NGI Taler . Next application deadline October 1st 2025. NLnet; Frequently Asked (and/or Anticipated) Questions

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Maybe @Proton_Team could implement Taler for Proton Wallet app?

I see there is an idea on user voice already:

And it can already operate in Switzerland:

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Thanks for sharing the links. I did not know of the Privacy Academy. The prices they charge only appear to work on older people given their testimonials video. Highway robbery if you ask me.

Pretty sure they are teaching the same Privacy Guides, Techlore, and The New Oil always have but free.

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I bought their subscription to check it out if I could onboard busy people on the privacy journey, and I can confirm it is of very high quality.

They have filmed very detailed videos exactly where to click, or tips, such as exactly how to create master password (which is always a headache even for me).

There is weekly (or more often) live steams, furum Q&As, or even they partner with coreboot computer makers such as NovaCustom Privacy Laptop - NovaCustom (NovaCustom and Starlabs CEOs recently appeared on their livestream, last week).

It can be expensive, but they provide great experience for non-tech people to onboard with privacy tools.

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Hmm. I see. Thanks for the context. I am continuing to read and watching their videos as I write this to see if they’re preaching accurate info. They do appear to be. But I have a lot more to read and watch and understand what they’re saying and how.

I was wondering about it, thanks for sharing.

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But they are also bringing on such people and associating with them:

The CEO of this company was on their podcast episode I am watching now on their Substack.

This makes me question Privacy Academy’s ability to assess quality folks and entities to “partner” with. The irony is lost on this Mark guy given his beliefs and all that he says in this video.

FYI.

I recommend people to stay away from this company Mark37.

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I partially agree, and partially not.

I agree on the part that various beliefs aren’t good in my opinion, but I don’t agree on the part that cancel culture solves this, but I think it rather deepens and fuels the division further.

There is a lot of people with all kinds of beliefs, for example, in my physical-personal life, and I am not sure how cancel people live in some kind of bubble without seeing what people believe, and somehow imagining ‘stay away’ solves it.

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Okay…

Well, when there are logical fallacies present in your own views and that it is clear they have cognitive dissonance, they do not inspire confidence in their business and practices. They do appear to be saying the right things but we are all so very well aware that you can say all the right things and yet do the wrong things too.

You’re saying cancel culture does not solve it. I never said cancel this person or company. I am simply bringing this to everyone attention so they may decide to give them their dollars or not. And while cancel culture may not solve the issue at large, not cancelling does not solve the same issue either.

In the end, it will come down to if you’re comfortable working with, associating with, giving such entities your business or not. And that would depend on your priorities, ideologies, and philosophical bends.

I am simply sharing info and shedding light on what’s what as I see it. Am I factually wrong anywhere? Am I misrepresenting info and all they they want you to understand about themselves with what they say on their website? I just want people to know. That’s it.

It is just my personal opinion that nothing good comes from highly pro patriotic religious mindsets and thinking. I could be wrong, I could be right, there could be exceptions, etc - sure. But generally speaking, that opinion is more often more accurately representative of facts than not.

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Yea, that’s good you shed the light and let people decide.

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Speaking on sharing info - now that I have read and seen enough about Privacy Academy and Mark37, I implore anyone considering giving these folks your business to access and evaluate their their belief systems (social, political, cultural, religious, etc).

I personally don’t recommend them seeing and reading all that I have in the last two hours even though they may appear to say all the right things. I would not feel comfortable following all that they preach about and claim and how they do the same.

There are red flags everywhere. Too many references to pro patriotism, nationalism, sovereignty, God, religion, and using words like slavery without consideration for the nuances and context of the subject matter being discussed.

They are definitely a little over the top with how they are trying to explain things at times. Almost Rob Braxman like but with accurate enough info but I don’t like how they are going about it. They are also not sharing all that people ought to know about what they’re talking about so it ends being misrepresented as a whole.

In other words, quality of their education given their podcasts episodes and videos they only appear to upload on a right wing video platform is questionable and not how I would prefer people get educated about privacy and security. Like I said, several red flags.

Decide for yourselves to give them your business or not. I wouldn’t.

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Sorry, I know this comment is somewhat off topic but since this entity was linked in the OP post, I felt compelled to inform.

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Yea

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Another comparison between Taler and Digital Euro was published a few days ago, this one is 45 minutes long Digital Euro - What the FAQ, ECB? - media.ccc.de

My notes/summary:

  1. Explains what is money, what is ECB (European central bank), how money transfers are made.
  2. Explains what would change with digital euro, tells problems which can happen, talk myths/lies and risks.
  3. Tells that a lot of things about digital euro are not clear (I hear this from multiple and many sources). They spent a lot of time trying to figure out going through ECB documents, but designs and details are not available.
  4. They showed detailed graphs how digital euro would work from available information.
  5. I thought it is centralized, but is quite decentralized. A lot of entities are still involved, and its quite complex. ECB only holds central database of transactions.
  6. Digital euro account would be limited to ~3000€ to ensure people still use old-school accounts as well (and banks don’t get bankrupt).
  7. There would be offline mode (without internet), allowing people to exchange euro ‘tokens’ anonymously to each other (he predicts its insecure and creates new dependency on foreign hardware).
  8. And on-line version of digital euro fails privacy demands (not private).
  9. Conveys a message digital euro is a flawed system in all kinds of ways.
  10. Then starts talking about GNU Taler, that it can already operate in Switzerland with franks, and soon it will start operation in Germany with euros (customers of 1 bank will be able to use it), and Hungary (1 bank too)

After watching this talk, digital euro does not looks as bad, BUT CBDCs are still a problem in countries outside of EU, because there are all kinds of designs how the governments can implement this.

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You need an exchange, these banks will operate exchanges (as its easier for banks to get licenses to publish digital currencies). However you don’t need to be a traditional customer of the bank to use their exchange.

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Thanks for clarification, thats even better. In other words my statement

is incorrect. The linked article says people in whole Germany will be able to use this exchange this year.

But both technically, and legally, they cannot operate outside of Germany yet.