1. The payment system operators cannot track how a customer spends their electronic money (blind signatures)
2. merchants' income is transparent for tax collection authorities. This helps prevent tax evasion and money laundering.
Other privacy features: decentralized, no customer registration.
Multi-currency support, one-click payments, very suitable for micropayments.
p4bl0•16h ago
Yes, and I'll add that Taler is the only way that currently exists to actually make digital cash. It's not a cryptocurrency and doesn't use a blockchain, which is indeed a very good thing: it doesn't try to be at the same time the currency and the transaction system. It is only a transaction system, which works independently of the actual currency used on it, and is able to perform transactions of bearer-based tokens (i.e., actually analog to digital cash) rather than ledger-based tokens (analog to an internal bank wire transfer) like blockchain-based solutions are limited to.
And as you said, Taler also offers privacy for the buyer while maintaining accountability for the sellers (allowing taxability, accountability, etc.), which makes it a very good candidate for implementing a CBDC (central bank digital currency).
nabla9•15h ago
That's why European Commission supports it.
>Our work is co-funded by the European Commission and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) as part of the NGI TALER project.
nabla9•17h ago
Taler has "One-sided Privacy":
1. The payment system operators cannot track how a customer spends their electronic money (blind signatures)
2. merchants' income is transparent for tax collection authorities. This helps prevent tax evasion and money laundering.
Other privacy features: decentralized, no customer registration.
Multi-currency support, one-click payments, very suitable for micropayments.
p4bl0•16h ago
And as you said, Taler also offers privacy for the buyer while maintaining accountability for the sellers (allowing taxability, accountability, etc.), which makes it a very good candidate for implementing a CBDC (central bank digital currency).
nabla9•15h ago
>Our work is co-funded by the European Commission and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) as part of the NGI TALER project.