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Comment by WEFwoof | Hacker News Reader

> I don't like where we're going.

Me neither, not at all.

The idea of a digital Euro is already worked on:

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/html/digitaleuro.en.html

Obviously, it's an "inclusive" system, a term that evokes in me strong feelings of mistrust, as it has no provisions of alternatives like not moving to a digital currency. "Inclusive" by mandate and without consent, or the possibility to opt out. (Somewhat reminds me the Onion's Google privacy village.)

Let's crack open the windows, so we can throw privacy and liberty right out.

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The mandate is not discsussed yet but could come. CBs are running many pilots since they don‘t know also whether CBDC would work for their incentive, since it has to be accepted by citizens and not create a shock to economy.

side note, „inclusive“ here refers to unbanked population. Today they can use cash, but many people specially in poor countries have no access to banking. A no-smartphone no-bank-needed digital cash could enable big part of countries to be included in financial system (some up to 40% of population)

The transition can be done quickly enough, though probably not overnight in Europe (like with India's overnight demonetisation of the 500 and 1,000 Rupee notes).

In the current climate, where we're all ever so slightly microbiophobic, it'll even be easier to push through as a good thing, handwaving any concerns with respect to privacy and centralised control as conspiratorial.

Indeed I am aware of the intended meaning of "inclusive" in their texts, I just played around with expanding it a bit.

Right on point distinction. There are various models:

- almost all CBDC designs are transparent (monitored and stored), since they sit on the ledger and has to be auditable by a third party. So, the only way to allow privacy is to give some „vouchers“ that those transactions are either not stored or stored with a different key. ECB has proposed one such designs, e.g. 300 euro vouchers a day.

- there are other models that do not use DLTs so they can provide means not to store specific txns, hence private.

If stored, it can be audited.

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