Britcoin or Britcon? Bank of England grilled on Digital Pound privacy concerns "Nobody in this country wants there to be programmable digital currency like the Chinese system, where the government can basically determine what you look at, what you're spending, and determine what you can spend it on," said a member of the Treasury Committee grilling the incoming deputy governor of Financial Stability for …
I still fail to understand why we might need a digital pound.... The only reason I can see for having a currency that worked like that would be to make it easier to track down tax dodgers, and that would mean that there would be a baked in lack of privacy, which someone nefarious is likely to exploit one day (not necessarily someone from the government either.). Otherwise, we're just adding more computing overhead to financial transactions for no good reason.
I agree. I see no benefit, other than to reduce banking charges for business. For consumers and the general retain public we already have digital currency. We use every time we tap to pay, either with a card or a phone. We use it when we send money via EFT. Why would we need, or even want, a blockchain backed currency with a separate wallet that we have to manage?
For business, which pays a much high transaction cost than consumers do via high street banks, then there MAY (and I stress the MAY) be some advantages if this reduces banking costs and improves transaction speed. But that is very marginal.
"I still fail to understand why we might need a digital pound"
*We* as in, the general public, do not need a digital pound. The government would very much like a digital pound because they won't need to go to a series of banks with a series of warrants in order to check financial records, they will have it all available directly on tap. (And also with the possibility of freezing the assets of undesirables on a whim)
"The government would very much like a digital pound"
On of the more scary thoughts I have heard about the digital currency is the ability for government to invalidate it. They could put an expiration date on some of the cash to force you to spend it for example. Noting how good the government is at managing inflation and the economy they could inflict such decisions very quickly and easily.
@AC
"So, right now, no government can just invalidate paper money on a whim? Is that what you are trying to say?"
The gov can use a very blunt instrument to try and beat people into doing what the government believes is best. A digital currency gives them literal control over the exact money you have. Instead of blunt destruction of some denomination of note (your very good example) they can instead and accurately affect the value you hold with greater precision. The gov wants you to spend more, put an expiration date on the money you hold (must spend within a certain time).
Instead of the anonymity of cash where we can trade directly, they can see the prior transactions of some money and (assume a crime for example) just freeze those tokens even though you only got that token many transactions after the crime. They can target an individual and freeze their tokens instead of the less accurate freezing a bank account (you may still have cash on you). Some economic failure of a government could bump up everyones tokens to cause inflation instead of the slower and less accurate printing money.
Government already fails at handling money. This adds another layer of control for them.
Gold. Recently made a tier 1 currency alongside the dollar. Why?
I think Gordon Brown sold most of ours trying to prop up his government. A criminal act IMHO as it was OUR gold not belonging to any one party.
Gold was a good basis for a currency because it's hard to get more of it. A principle Bitcoin followed.
That kind of demonetization does allow a government to destroy some money, but at a high cost. The only way India got away with it is by having an authoritarian government willing to take unpopular steps because they had plans for not losing the next election such as shutting off the internet when people expressed anger about that or anything else. They also had a lot of people suffering in order to target the criminals they were trying to, and may have failed to hurt those criminals as much as they planned. While any government can do it, it's unlikely to use such a blunt tool because they're going to make a lot of people angry and may not even get what they wanted.
A theoretical digital currency could give them more targeted power, allowing them to cancel your money while leaving mine alone, or allowing them to target some of your money while leaving the rest of it. This power is dangerous. That's what the politicians quoted in the article were asking about (among other dangerous things), looking for assurance that the British digital currency wouldn't have them. I don't trust this high-level view of it to be clear on what powers exist or will exist, and so I'd recommend that we not have one unless a more rigorous review ensures those capabilities are absent.
Close. You're correct that nobody could evade tax with this notional UK kleptocurrency as the government would have a comprehensive database of transactions. What you're missing is that they would also profess an obligation to keep that database out of the public eye at all costs. This secrecy is not unreasonable, but it would also make it very easy for the government to turn a blind eye when favoured people (AKA "party donors") did try to evade tax as all the evidence would be behind a wall of confidentiality.
We won't know who is really in control of it. Not the MPs we elect I bet. They just follow the whip. Central banks dancing to a BIS and globalist un-democratic tune? IMHO This is the most dangerous development the world has seen. It has the potential to knock us back to feudalism. No thinking citizen wants it but "they" will do everything possible to impose it. We don't need it and we have models for safer distributed systems in the crypto world.
"Breeden responded that the opportunity to work from a single distributed ledger in a given transaction had a lot to recommend it, including its ability to cut costs and risk."
I've yet to see anything that a govt has done that has actually resulted in costs being cut.
It's not always that easy. Of course, the obvious answer is that there is still cash and you can use it to buy many things, so they can't see that. Even with credit cards, they don't automatically see everything you've bought. They just see where you spent money. They can know how much money you gave to a store without having a list of products you bought there. Of course, they can go to the store and ask for records of the specific items and the store probably has that data, but it's not linked together in a database they can query on a whim.
A digital currency may end up working similarly, but the extra fluidity might mean that tracking subsequent transactions is easier. For example, if I pay £55.04 to Amazon for two items, they will hold onto that for a bit to make sure the funds are coming, then split out their fees and transfer the amounts to the sellers of the items I bought along with everyone else's payments. Without asking Amazon, it's hard to tell which items those were. With a digital currency, they might not need to hold the money for a while, meaning they wouldn't have any reason to amalgamate transactions into one payment, so the timing and value of the transaction to the seller would be more easily tracked. No guarantees that it would work that way, but it is certainly possible.
Yes but it's much, much harder. They can't suddenly let AI loose and tell it to find and block all accounts for people like us questioning their actions on social media. Which it won't even get right because they'll have trained it on a bureaucratic narrative instead of carefully constructed logic. I don't know how aware people are of the control imposed via pressure on tech and social media during that medical panic we had a couple of years ago - and it is still continuing. Witness the bank account closures, especially in Canada. How dare you protest - we'll starve you out!
"Cash is king" refers to "cash in the bank", not (just) literally having a pile of coins in your pocket - what is also referred to as having "liquidity". As opposed to having your wealth tied up in various "holdings" that can crash at any time, as in the 1987 stock market crash, when the term became popular.
Not that liquid assets weren't also devalued by the inflation following the crash, but that was only damaging to the little people, to the Players it was the stock prices that really hurt.
The phrase has nothing whatsoever to do with governments screwing up over money - in fact, ref the above, the total opposite: "cash is king" is pointing out the value of a government controlled currency over the totally arbitrary nature of the non-governmental system of wealth!
We haven't got to the point yet where those issues have been raised; we're at the technical design point
She said this in regard to privacy issues. I would have thought that a suitable solution for privacy features would impact significantly on the technical design. It's definitely not an extra bolt-on goody!
""We haven't got to the point yet where those issues have been raised; we're at the technical design point"
Actually these issues HAVE been raised, repeatedly. So what seems to be happening is doing the technical design BEFORE having the requirements. Or (more likely in my opinion), they are doing the technical design based on hidden requirements because they know that the level of government control in the requirements they are working to would be unacceptable to the public.
As the government has continually decided that the right boundary for privacy is that we have none, the whole thing is doomed to be a calamity on that front. It will take one single "crime committed using Britcoin" headline to ensure that the home secretary instantly removes any minor protections that it might be launched with.
It's disturbing that someone with senior responsibility for financial stability and risk seems to be still naively floating along on the wave of crapto hype from,a few years ago, with no knowledge whatsoever of the endless hacks, thefts, scams and failures that have become the norm these days. She even stated that using a distributed ledger could "cut costs", when single crypto transactions on blockchains are using insane amounts of energy.
"...stated that using a distributed ledger could "cut costs", when single crypto transactions on blockchains are using insane amounts of energy."
In fact one of the main points of blockchain technology is to make transactions expensive *on purpose* because this forces distribution of control (since no single party can have the power/wealth to unilaterally process transactions). BUT keep in mind that it is unlikely that a Central Bank Digital Currency would have a truly distributed architecture and related increased costs. The central bank / government will want to design a blockchain with central control built-in (which would save costs with respect to distributed control).
The insane energy currencies are doing that on purpose, because they allow anyone to mine blocks and therefore need some way to prevent people from making fake ones. The extremely difficult computing is designed to make that happen at the cost of way too much electricity being used. A central bank doesn't need to have unauthenticated people doing that work, and therefore can make one that won't farm out the verification process to random people who have bribed power plant operators. For all its other faults, and there are many, a digital pound would not have anywhere near Bitcoin's energy usage.
What if gold, silver and copper became legal tender again? As well as backing paper and digital which can be exchanged for the metals.
So merchants would have to take cash that is money and represents money. Mostly people would use the digital representations of course.
@Splod
"What if gold, silver and copper became legal tender again?"
Interestingly there is already a middle ground being attempted which looks very interesting- Tallymoney. Basically a private gold backed currency.
"Nobody in this country wants there to be programmable digital currency like the Chinese system, where the government can basically determine what you look at, what you're spending, and determine what you can spend it on,"
Simply because there are people in this country who want exactly that. And this person should damn well know that.
When a statement opens with a bare faced like (or being kind, unwitting propaganda) it renders whatever follows a total fucking waste of time.
Exactly. What is the government doing about the banks closing branches and thereby removing easy access to cash across vast swathes of the country? Where the only option becomes a cash machine in a convenience store that charges you £2 a time for the 'privilege' of having your own money? Absolutely naff all, that's what. Because they want that control.
From the Citizens Advice Bureau:
"Universal Credit has replaced these benefits for most people:
- Housing Benefit
- Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA)
- Child Tax Credit
- Working Tax Credit
- Income Support"
......and of course when Sarah Breeden and Jeremy Hunt (and all the other sock puppets talking about "technology")....when they all have their way there will be NO SUCH THING AS "MY MONEY".
The list above will be extended to include government supervision (and probably government control) of every conceivable asset a citizen might "possess"!!
I won't even be able to get some "money" from an auction of my physical possessions.......the proceeds will go directly into this government supervised (or government controlled) "digital regime".
Just say "NO F**CKING WAY" to Sarah Breeden and her Westminster boosters....."NO F**CKING WAY"!!!!
just fork monero or something
makes the changes necessary to your desire
add your secret tracking software pretend you are not monitoring all transactions in secret
put the the queen on logo
i wouldnt name it britcoin this name is a no go from a marketing point of view
How about a meme name in this way you will attract more investors by proving you are not taking anything not even your self so serious. How about: Lonely People Island Coin? LP-IC
done
"No, this 'vaccine' shot is entirely voluntary. You do not have to take it. However, for the good of the people, we are suspending your ability to do transactions in public places."
Privacy focused crypto-currency already exists today. The work is done. If the government wants privacy in financial transactions, they can do it. The fact that they are even discussing this topic tips their hand toward their agenda & goals.
#rant: Ok, I have to stop you there. Vaccines are for the benefit of you and your loved ones. If my mum had access to a COVID vaccine in Dec '20 I wouldn't be a core participant to the COVID inquiry now.
Billions of people haven't turned into zombies, fascists , sheep or tree frogs so I'll go with the statistics that it was both safe and effective at reducing the numbers of families not mourning loved ones. #rantover
That said, governments all tend to more control over time and this pointless idea is just another crappy example.
I'm sorry for your loss. I think if you look into this you will find those "medications" were anything but safe and effective but that is suppressed. None the less the data is out there, much obtained through FOI. Prosecutions look to be starting in the US, but a lot of forces are arranged against them. The government and media is not going to tell you about it. They screwed up big time. All great civilisations seem to go through a period of corruption as they decline - I think that is what we are seeing.
For the record, my mother died of a virus way before convid. She was frail, the hospital couldn't even be bothered to find what it was. The state wants maximum control. This has been known for centuries.
Self-custody is the way forward when it comes to managing your funds and with currently available cryptocurrencies we're already there.
I can transfer money to anyone on the face of the planet in a completely secure, anonymous, yet verifiable way all for next to no fees (none of which end up in the hands of grubby bankers).
This concept is so beautifully perfect that it's bound to win out eventually. It's just a pity that the world will seemingly have to pass through the CBDC horror show before we get there.
Breeden responded: "We haven't got to the point yet where those [privacy] issues have been raised; we're at the technical design point. ..."
Then the people involved aren't competent to be involved. Privacy issues in a digital currency have to be at the core of the technical design if it is to have a possibility of meeting any privacy constraints placed upon it. Anybody who doesn't realise this has no business being anywhere within a thousand miles of any digital currency design.
By the sounds of it they expect to bake privacy in by saying, legislatively, thou shalt not breach privacy instead of ensuring technically that it is not possible for you to breach privacy.
This kind of idiocy is not surprising to those who have watched various government types keep insisting that there must be a way you can break encryption but only for the "good guys".
She was asked about “programmability” but talked about “privacy”? These are two very different things.
The only reason for a government to adopt a digital currency is for full control.
We already have digital transactions which do everything that a digital currency does apart from the programmable part.
Also remember that once you download a digital wallet for the proposed digital pound it will capture a face scan etc.
This is Digital ID by the back door. The government get full control of your money and can track your movements.
>"Nobody in this country wants there to be programmable digital currency like the Chinese system, where the government can basically determine what you look at, what you're spending, and determine what you can spend it on"
"Nobody has the intention of building a wall", said the East German leadership, in 1960 or so.
edit: actually it was in 1961, 2 months before they built it. https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/themen/deutsche-einheit/-niemand-hat-die-absicht-eine-mauer-zu-errichten--393932
"Breeden responded: "We haven't got to the point yet where those issues have been raised; we're at the technical design point."
This is exactly the point it should be addressed. It should be inherent in the design to protect privacy and central control. I think we already have that system, called Bitcoin! Further it must be legislatively protected too. Remember, legislation can be manipulated and changed or "emergency measures" introduced. Legislation should ideally prevent monopolistic capture of the processing. If the processors are all banks or some other entities easily subject to capture or pressure the same problem arises. Best design it to block avenues of abuse and corruption.
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