Bitcoin solved the “move money from A to B securely, internationally, quickly” problem 15 years ago. Taler strikes me in the most generous terms as a new attempt as an unimaginative effort to re-envision the banking system that existed before that watershed moment. We have instant, international settlement, we have that technology, it’s here, it’s mature, it works, it continues to get better, it has a market cap higher than Sweden’s GDP, and the average long-term trend has been growth no matter what way you slice it. It’s already more widely used and reliable than most national currencies. And it solves the delivery problem.
Taler is explicitly positioning itself as a better international payment standard to prevent central bank digital currencies from taking that role
From the Taler FAQ:
The exchange would be operated by a bank or in cooperation with a bank, and that bank would hold the funds in escrow respectively on an internal settlement account. Note that this bank could be a regular bank or a central bank for a central bank digital currency. Irrespective of this, the bank would fall under the relevant financial services regulations, which is one reason why consumers can rely on the conversion of Taler coins into normal bank money.
That doesn’t sound like opposing a CBDC to me, it sounds like explicitly building infrastructure for its existence. To review, Taler is
- Money I don’t control (held by another entity) of a money supply I don’t control (can be printed at will by government)
- That can’t be used internationally
- That is funded/sponsored by the EU, which wants to push a CBDC
- That has built in support for the concept of money expiration
Again please see the above presentation. And yes a central bank could also use Taler, as one of many banks, which would prevent it from being centralised on a single one like in the case of CBDC.
GNU Taler isn’t a currency, its a payment system. And it can be used internationally, you are just completely misunderstanding its purpose and how it functions.
