this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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GNU Taler begins operating in Switzerland, distributed by the Taler Operations AG. Gnu Taler aims to be a β€œdigital wallet” and has been used by the swiss national bank as well as the european national bank as a example for how a digital currency handed out by the state could work. It aims to be as privacy preserving as cash for the buyer while not allowing the seller to evade taxes.

Currently the Taler is brought out by a special organisation, the β€œTaler Operations AG”, and not the national bank, although both the national bank as well as the Taler Team have shown interest in a official digial currency by the national bank based on the Taler. But we need to relativate as the national council has stated that the introduction of a digital currency would probably take relatively major legislative changes and therefore take a bit of time.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

taler://pay-push/exchange.demo.taler.net/ZXHDJF9DHN97DBZCR8CABC838ZHR3C6M55JRCR9M00GZM5SEZ9EG

For whoever is testing taler

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Last time i checked, users had to exchange their funds on cendral exchanges. The funds you got from exchange A can not be used on exchange B. So from my understanding, it's like you needed to use the same bank to interact (not just the same currency). How can this even be considered for adoption?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

When the alternative is using digital payment methods from a fascist country?

A bunch of not-ideal products are about to get adopted by other countries and then are about to gain all of the features that the U.S. monopolies always fought against.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The Idea is that the central banks adopt them.

The same way there is obly one Euro and you can only get it from the central bank, there will only be one Euro-Taler from the european central bank, one Frank-Taler from the swiss national bank etc

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The european central bank does not run an exchange at the moment. That means that all the other european banks and all european Taller users will need to switch eventually?

And what about transactions in foreign currencies? I guess we would need a central private party for that, similar to visa.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

someone quickly send me € 10 Mil. I wanna see if it’s working πŸ˜†

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Hi androidul here are 10 Kudos for you to get you started (lacking the Mil.€ at the moment πŸ˜„)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

sure

taler://pay-push/exchange.demo.taler.net/7VJWX736EABRDZ4X84B29QM6M1CZV6CTKQGSX3X57FAG03PZQ8S0

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

it worked, ty! πŸ™Œ

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It is working (I didn't hit Receive so they can get it). Here's about tree fiddy for you neons

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Tree(50)? I guess Inflation has gotten really bad if people are using the tree function to measure currency.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

It's a compact notation, but making change takes way too long.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Is there some sort of an overview of all the components that are required for the whole system to work? Are there opportunities for new PSPs to emerge and try to topple the existing ones with better and cheaper service?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

https://www.taler.net/en/docs.html

If you want to exchange official fiat currencies you need something that libeufin can talk to via the standartized banking api. Everything else is included in Taler and ready to be used with unofficial regional currencies for example.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Sadly, the demo is broken :-(

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I've just got the app from f-droid and withdrawn some KUDOS πŸ˜„ someone wants to try exchanging them via link/QR?

Let me know how it goes Magnus

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

taler://pay-push/exchange.demo.taler.net/80XCKRJWTHQREPWMZ5WEP2C8BYZG79D9AYJPPY69CPHAH1FBEE9G

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Nice thanks! I had to paste it in "Enter URI"

Here's double back your way: πŸ’ΈπŸ’Έ

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The ECB also wants to introduce a digital Euro. I wonder how exchanging my digital Euros to digital Swiss Francs and vise versa would work. Currently with physical cash you need to exchange your money at an intermediary. But with digital coins it’s surely possible for the national bank to handle this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

If you ever paid with your card in a non-Euro country, you already did something like that.

Revolut will on the fly convert between your currencies.

Cyberpunk is now, old man.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

That is still a corporate intermediary who does the conversion young man. And they are converting your digital money that is stored at the corporate private bank.

Digital currency is going to be the equivalent of cash. Digital money that is stored on your phone and is minted by the national bank like cash. Not the same as your money at the bank.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

It is very easy lol but it's likely Mastercard/Visa doing the conversion (taking ~ 0.5% each time), exactly what we want to avoid :P

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