>Offline digital euro payments are instant transfers which could be made without an internet connection, as long as there is physical proximity between the devices of the payer and the payee as it happens with cash now. Users would be able to store digital euros in their device for offline use, below a certain threshold exactly as we do with cash in our wallets. Offline digital euro payments would be validated “peer-to-peer”: the payer and payee would directly verify that the transfer of value between them has effectively happened. Such payments would be used mainly for small payments. Just like cash, the details of your offline payments in digital euro would not be visible to anyone – neither your bank, nor the European Central Bank.
(it's not mentioned anywhere, but if ECB wants to do quantitative easing in the future, it could give every EU citizen 100 EUR directly, so called helicopter money. It would be the most effective way to do monetary easing and would allow many negative effects of QE trough banks)
Make no mistake, I don’t like the government. But at least I can sue the government if they do something that jeopardizes my business without a solid reason. With these private companies, posting a cry for help on HN is pretty much the only thing you can do.
What country are you from, if you don't mind sharing?
To me, as a North American...this just sounds implausible.
No, you can't. Maybe in Finland or someplace like that.
Why does this matter? According to Fisher Black people just substitute the money they don't want with the money they want. So far the only widespread substitution that is happening is boring fractional reserve banking. Barter clubs are an unimportant niche. For everyone else they can just trade their money for something that matches their philosophy better. If you think gold is the right choice, then don't force it onto other people.
Also, the value of money today is mostly backed by contractual obligations, so the situation is actually pretty good.
Also this doesn't replace the current euro, its a new type of Euro with a separate account and payment system and so on.
- Digital payments wherever you are in the euro area
- Possibility to pay digitally even without access to the internet
- More choice for consumers (alternative to Visa/Mastercard)
- Possibility to pay digitally even if you do not have a bank account
- Enhanced privacy for users: The digital euro would enable users to make digital payments while ensuring their data is protected. When using the digital euro offline, the privacy of the user is the same as when they use cash. The European Central Bank would not be able to identify individual digital euro users, nor what users do with their money. They would only have access to encrypted data, and only to the extent that this is necessary to settle digital euro transactions, and support payment services providers in performing their tasks. This means that state-of-the-art security and privacy-preserving measures would be used, to ensure that data cannot be used to directly identify a specific digital euro user by the ECB and the national central banks.Overall, the level of privacy introduced with the digital euro would be unprecedented for electronic payments. The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) would ensure that this high degree of privacy is respected.
cost:
Basic services for end users such as opening and closing a digital euro account, consulting balances, funding and defunding your digital euro account, and making transfers and payments would be provided free of charge.
https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GD...
This is a proposal by the Commission. Next this needs to be approved by the European Parliament and Council. Then the ECB needs to decide on all the details (technical and otherwise). Then the ECB needs to build, test and deploy the system. Banks will still play a role so they will need to build, test and deploy their part as well. Then the system needs to work well enough and see sufficient adoption to be actually useful.
