No as it's not point to point. It involves an intermediate party to broker the transaction. Think that like a bank. You need to apply for one, which most likely involves KYC. Taler is designed such that the recipient is known, for tax purposes they claim.
In contrast, AFAIK crypto can be P2P, only involving the blockchain and miner/validator that don't know you. That's what not Taler try to do.
EDIT: Add correction to crypto description.
So it is a card replacement while crypto is more akin to a cash analog. If the two coexist in the digital world, that would be awesome.
Let's keep cash around as well
YES. In the physical world, no digital tech would be as accessible, easy to use and hard to surveil.
The problem with crypto is that is chaotic. It also has the major downside of being very computational and requiring a ton of energy.
In contrast Taler is a payment system not a crypto. You could technically could use crypto with Taler if you wanted to. Taler has lightning fast payments which have way less overhead.
In summary I think cash and crypto are good for small transactions such as paying a friend but for big businesses and normal shopping Taler is better
I think crypto can achieve stability, not by pegged to a fiat currency but commodity backed. There are also mechanisms and algorithms that can confirm transactions without using excessive energy, be fast, and private all in the same time. I still think crypto have a future. Yet I don't know how far that future is, but for now I will stay away from it as far as I can.
This is a weak point of GNU Taler. I assume one will need to have a bank license to run GNU Taler instance. And banks will not be very motivated. We can dispute how GNU Taler can be better (or not) than crypto, but it is pure theoretical now.
seems like a good middle ground tbh. No cryptocurrency will ever reach the adoption of fiat. This could make online transactions that would otherwise be made over your creditcard, bank or insert fintech like Paypal quite a bit better
And I'd rather have this than a "digital Euro" or "digital Yuan"
It provides most of the benefits of "crypto", the ones that normal people actually want, with the added advantage that it might actually end up being usable.
No, because it's not decentralized.
It federated which is decentralized in my book
AFAIK it has no exchanges yet, so for now, it doesn't provide anything at all.
The German coop-bank that is part of the current pilot project has recently stated that if everything goes according to plan they will begin offering it before the end of this year.
Yet is the key word. It is rapidly getting close
Both better. Proprietary money is a scam.
Not really. Maybe it can give more privacy than transparent crypto like Bitcoin, but private transactions in crypto are superior.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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