Collaborating on the innovative electronic payment system GNU Taler for the benefit of European citizens

A new online payment system that is socially, ecologically, and fiscally responsible, to make finance easy for common people. That’s the aim of the Next Generation Internet pilot named NGI TALER. This project, coordinated by the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), is operated by a consortium of eleven partners from eight European countries with the objective to roll out an innovative electronic payment system for the greater benefit of European citizens, merchants, and banks.

  • qazEnglish
    12•5 months ago

    The payment solution GNU Taler

    I wasn’t expecting this to be based on a GNU project. I’ve heard of GNU Taler before, but it didn’t really register this initiative was based on the project.

    …it offers privacy for the buyer: neither merchants (payee) nor banks can trace or link the payments to the payer. That makes the system similar to cash for the consumer, bringing this level of privacy to online payments.

    The European program NGI TALER enforces transparency on the payee side, allowing governments to hold businesses accountable for their income and tax obligations.

    So, opposed to cash the government can still view all transactions but the corporations can’t. This would be an improvement over card payments in terms of privacy, but it’s still worse than cash.

    It is also a no-risk payment option for the merchant as there is no equivalent of fake or stolen credit cards, as payments are cleared and confirmed instantly just like cash. There is no new currency involved, there is no energy-consuming proof-of-work or proof-of-stake method, and payment approval is processed even faster than with credit cards.

    The amount of people using proof of stake payments is negligible and the people that are currently using cryptocurrencies probably won’t switch. So this probably won’t impact energy usage at all.

    Overall, I think it’s good to see effort being put into further development and testing of the GNU technology. We’ll see what happens to it in a couple years.

    • @[email protected]English
      3•5 months ago

      So, opposed to cash the government can still view all transactions but the corporations can’t. This would be an improvement over card payments in terms of privacy, but it’s still worse than cash.

      If I understand correctly, goverement would see when you cash out money to Taler Wallet, but now what you buy then. But I do not know the protocol internal work.

    • TheMurphyEnglish
      3•5 months ago

      So this probably won’t impact energy usage at all.

      The banking/payment industry today runs extremely power hungry systems to process payments, so my guess would be the new system runs much more efficiently.

      Source for banking CO2 footprint

    • @[email protected]English
      2•5 months ago

      The amount of people using proof of stake payments is negligible and the people that are currently using cryptocurrencies probably won’t switch. So this probably won’t impact energy usage at all.

      This system would slow or stop adoption of these energy intense operations, so in that way it would positively prevent new energy wastage.

      • qazEnglish
        2•5 months ago

        Good point