'Britcoin' Digital Currency Could Be In Use By End of Decade (theguardian.com) 66
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Consumers could be using a new digital pound as an alternative to cash by the end of the decade under plans being drawn up by the Bank of England and the Treasury. The government is speeding up its response to the rise of privately issued cryptocurrencies and stable coins with a four-month public consultation process on a "Britcoin" starting on Tuesday. After the volatility of cryptocurrencies and the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX, the Bank and the Treasury will seek to reassure the public that a state-backed digital currency would be as safe as cash. Officials will explore the technical issues involved in creating a central bank digital currency before a final decision is taken by the middle of the decade.
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, and Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, say the government could still decide against going ahead but momentum is building behind the idea. The consultation paper argues that a digital pound will be needed at some point in the future. Assuming the go-ahead is given, the earliest date cash could be held in digital wallets offered to consumers by the private sector through smartphones or smartcards would be the end of the 2020s, the Bank and the Treasury say. Bailey said: "As the world around us and the way we pay for things becomes more digitalized, the case for a digital pound in the future continues to grow. A digital pound would provide a new way to pay, help businesses, maintain trust in money and better protect financial stability. However, there are a number of implications which our technical work will need to carefully consider. This consultation and the further work the Bank will now do will be the foundation for what would be a profound decision for the country on the way we use money."
If introduced, the digital pound would be issued by the Bank of England and could be used to make payments in person or online. It would be interchangeable with cash and bank deposits, and -- as with the current system of notes -- be issued in denominations of pounds sterling. No interest would be paid on pounds held in digital form. The Bank and the Treasury say a digital pound would be subject to rigorous standards of privacy and data protection. "Like current digital payments and bank accounts, the digital pound would not be anonymous because the ability to identify and verify users is necessary to prevent financial crime," they said. "This is essential for trust and confidence in money and therefore wide use of the digital pound." Hunt added: "While cash is here to stay, a digital pound issued and backed by the Bank of England could be a new way to pay that's trusted, accessible and easy to use."
"That's why we want to investigate what is possible first, while always making sure we protect financial stability."
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, and Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, say the government could still decide against going ahead but momentum is building behind the idea. The consultation paper argues that a digital pound will be needed at some point in the future. Assuming the go-ahead is given, the earliest date cash could be held in digital wallets offered to consumers by the private sector through smartphones or smartcards would be the end of the 2020s, the Bank and the Treasury say. Bailey said: "As the world around us and the way we pay for things becomes more digitalized, the case for a digital pound in the future continues to grow. A digital pound would provide a new way to pay, help businesses, maintain trust in money and better protect financial stability. However, there are a number of implications which our technical work will need to carefully consider. This consultation and the further work the Bank will now do will be the foundation for what would be a profound decision for the country on the way we use money."
If introduced, the digital pound would be issued by the Bank of England and could be used to make payments in person or online. It would be interchangeable with cash and bank deposits, and -- as with the current system of notes -- be issued in denominations of pounds sterling. No interest would be paid on pounds held in digital form. The Bank and the Treasury say a digital pound would be subject to rigorous standards of privacy and data protection. "Like current digital payments and bank accounts, the digital pound would not be anonymous because the ability to identify and verify users is necessary to prevent financial crime," they said. "This is essential for trust and confidence in money and therefore wide use of the digital pound." Hunt added: "While cash is here to stay, a digital pound issued and backed by the Bank of England could be a new way to pay that's trusted, accessible and easy to use."
"That's why we want to investigate what is possible first, while always making sure we protect financial stability."
At last! (Score:4, Funny)
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I'm very sure it can be used for something other than paying your taxes.
Will I get cash back or miles? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does this do that visa or Mastercard doesn't do except give me no protection against theft and no consolidation of my bills or less accepted world wide???
Crypto's main claim to utility is distributed validation. A centralized digital currency is not better than a Visa card.
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I would have no problem with it being centralized, like I have not problem with Visa or MasterCard. If they could include way to exchange it for overseas currency without banks getting involved and charging me a commission it would be better.
The only thing is, do I trust the government knowing all my transactions? But they probably could find out from the banks anyway.
CBDC is NOT Bitcoin (Score:1, Informative)
Such a desperate attempt to try to pump up interest in Bitcoins, the end of Crypto Scam is near.
CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency, in this case the digital pound) is more than merely NOT Bitcoin, it is actually the *nemesis* of Bitcoins. CBDC is cryptocurrency backed by the central bank, hence it has all the supposed upside of crypto coins (not relying on any third party for settlement) AND the upside of cash in your wallet (backed by government) so you won't get rug-pulled (or "hacked") and lost all you
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Oh, the headline was actually "B_r_itcoin" and not Bitcoin. My bad. :-/
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Well, that was not your only bad. The other obvious bad was that you trust this and future government to not fuck you over.
The drive for state owned digital currency is, in significant part, motivated by an increasing want for control over the spending of people. What will inevitably be built into all these systems is a way for the issuer to track and control the spending behavior of the users (programmable money). It is just as immoral as nigel farrages face.
Re: CBDC is NOT Bitcoin (Score:1)
You are absolutely full of shit here (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I loathe this site when it comes to most of you "analyzing" crypto and its tech stack. Nothing could be further from the truth.
1. CBDC will tightly control the infrastructure validating transactions meaning the government can absolutely control the state of the ledger at any time.
2. With full control of the ledger and its supporting infrastructure, the government can literally make the crypto inflationary or deflationary at will by doing things like authorizing the issuance of new coins or burning supply in wallets.
3. The government will control the mechanism of wallet creation and can make it so that wallets are tied to smart contracts which allow the government to trigger the smart contract and burn coins or lock your funds if you are a nogoodnik.
CBDCs are literally a "21st century" version of Karl Marx's vision of the state having a total monopoly on both the general money supply AND financial infrastructure.
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> Who is this Karl Marx of whom you speak? I know of a famous guy from the 19th Century by that name, but he was very negative about the concept of "states", proposing instead networks of self governing communes, so I assume it isn't him.
Not exactly. That may have been Marx's stated end game. But I think Marx admitted: before that sort communist utopia could be achieved, force would have to be used to take the means of production from the capitalists. That would mean an all-powerful state would be needed
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With CBDC from your favorite government, there is no reason whatsoever for using Bitcoin at all.
I'm solidly anti-bitcoin, but there remains a reason, it's not administered by your government.
Re: CBDC is NOT Bitcoin (Score:2)
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It's not cryptocurrency at all, it's just a central bank online banking and payment system.
Freezing pensioners (Score:3)
Cloud and Heat (Score:2)
You mean something like "Cloud and Heat" from eight years ago?
"Germans Can Get Free Heating From the Cloud" [slashdot.org]
Posted by timothy on 2014-11-11
"Coin" (Score:4, Insightful)
How will this be any different or more useful than having ordinary money in a bank account?
I can transfer that around easily and everybody already accepts it.
I even have a little plastic card I can wave at people to make payments.
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I even have a little plastic card I can wave at people to make payments.
The supposed benefit is that instead of VISA/MC/whatever taking 1-5% cut of every transaction, this would be free of such charges. And no need for a bank account either (with their own fees).
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> Debit stuff doesn't have this fee either.
Are you sure about that?
Re:"Coin" (Score:4, Interesting)
The flip side of the credit card transaction cost is the protections of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 as amended. A digital pound might initially have more benefits for business-to-business transactions than for consumer purchases.
Re: "Coin" (Score:3)
The government can track and revoke each coin (Score:2)
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Why don't they link up with an existing state-sponsored Crypto Currency? The only one I know about is the Petro, the state sponsoring it is Venezuela.
Of course I have no idea what happens if Liz Truss gets in again, billions lopped off the value of something that no-one in their right mind would buy into anyway?
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Doesn't El Salvador has one as well? A great company for Britain for sure, their own equivalent of the Eurozone.
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Come on, it's the UK government we're talking about here, they would never do such thing.
Re:"Coin" (Score:5, Interesting)
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How will this be any different or more useful than having ordinary money in a bank account?
The difference will be that the government will be able to see, track and ultimately control the money on your government bank account.
Re: "Coin" (Score:1)
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I suppose you don't need a bank account. For many of us that's not an issue, but presumably it's a thing for some people in some places...
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Central bank can't go bankrupt in the money it prints, it's essentially a full reserve bank so you can park a bunch of money in a single account and not worry about account insurance limits.
Existing online payment systems all have various combinations of lack of private transfers, fees, censorship beyond required by law and lack of ease of use. SEPA for instance lacks easy of use, there's QR codes but support by banks is optional. Creditcards make everything more expensive and prohibit lots of legal commerc
Last Flick of the tail of a defeated government (Score:5, Insightful)
The Conservative government in the UK is finished - they know it. There's probably nothing they could ever do now that would ensure they get re-voted in next election. It's not that the opposition is more enticing to voters, it's just that the Conservative party is imploding. This seems to happen with some regularity at around 10 years in power, and it affects all political parties we have data on.
These sorts of crazy ideas mostly come from the Treasury and civil servants. They "sell" them to the government as a way to "sex them up" a bit, give them something positive to talk about and to look like they've got some good ideas. The thing is, by now, if they spend even £1 implementing this, that's a £1 that they're not spending on the NHS, or on schools or maths lessons, Brexit trade deals, "levelling up" or whatever else. Ultimately, it's that failing that will see this plan revoked at the next election when the next government takes over.
My guess is that the only money ever spent on this in the next 10 years will be on test accounts. But we'll see...
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Indeed, but there's another angle they're playing, extend this ten year wave by making things so bad that no party wants to take over. Prove me wrong!
"finished" (Score:3, Informative)
The Conservative government in the UK is finished
Don't you get it? There is no "conservative" or "labour" party. They are all part of a play put on to distract you. It's just their turn to look down and out for a while until in a few years they magically are on the rise again.
Britcoin is a thing that was coming independant of any "party" in power. Because it's something central banks want, it's not something that any of the parties care about at all.
Same goes for the U.S. or pretty much any large countr
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The parties don't really collude with each other all that much, so the rotation is insurance that no single small group ever digs into the power structure permanently. Even if there's literally zero difference between the two parties, the rotation still has immense value. Take a look at countries with a single party that stays in power for decades. Most/all of them are doing pretty poorly.
Even if the libs in Britain are e
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The parties don't really collude with each other all that much
They do not collude at all, because they are wholly manipulated from above. That's the whole point, the part of the picture you seem unwilling to see. It's like you are watching a puppet show and totally unwilling to acknowledge there is someone besides the puppets involved.
it's absolutely clear that the people on the Tory side are out of gas
If something is that clear it's because someone has painted a picture they want you to see, and not what
Re: Last Flick of the tail of a defeated governmen (Score:2)
Nope (Score:4, Insightful)
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On the other hand, UK already has a digital currency, its called the Oyser card. Its just not accepted for anything but the tube.
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That is not really a currency. It may be digital, but it's not a currency.
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If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, its a duck.
The irony is it's not even necessary (Score:5, Informative)
The UK government could just create a digital pound on the RippleNet blockchain and get 99% of these benefits without the downsides inherent to a government-run CBDC.
Ripple transfer fees are not even a penny the last time I checked. It has first class support for ISO20022 which is the international anti-money laundering spec for crypto.
Creating coins on top of existing ledgers has been done ever since ERC20 was created (that's the spec that allows Tether to exist on the Ethereum blockchain as a Layer 2 coin). There is no need for their own special blockchain.
And that's how you know this is purely about pride and controlling the people. The UK could easily just ramp up a massive cluster of RippleNet nodes and have a backup plan to fork the blockchain if they encounter hostility.
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let the free market work out how to make efficient payments with it.
This is great. I needed a laugh.
Until they take it from you (Score:3)
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Imagine what they'll do to your Britcoins if you post something unfavorable.
What? Any government can already seize their own citizens money without a digital currency, they simply access their bank accounts. A digital currency changes nothing in regards to this.
Just another Brexit... (Score:2)
Could be! (Score:2)
I could also have an estranged billionaire uncle that I don't know about that leaves me $100,000,000 upon his death. Seems pretty unlikely, but it's actually more likely than everyone using Bitcoin in 2030.
Think of the trouble ... (Score:2)
... that was caused when the pound last changed, how are we supposed to shove one of these digital pounds into a shopping trolley now?
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[class:butt hanger]
[action: monkeys in flight]
OR NOT (Score:2)
fuck crypto
"the digital pound would not be anonymous" (Score:1)
Okay, so here is a question:
What exactly is the advantage over credit/debit cards?
Count d'Muney, Count d'Muney! (Score:2)
Members of Parliment are looking to cash out before next elections?
Worst idea in centuries (Score:2)
Nothing paves the way to totalitarian jackbootism, and eventually full-on repression like digital currency, Once money is considered to be a set of numbers in a computer, and the whole system of it is run by bureaucrats and politicians, freedom and liberty go extinct - the amount of money you have can be instantly changed by operators of the system, and any purchase you make can be vetoed.
Everything you do can be monitored and even halted. Each transaction you make can be logged, studied, catalogued, and an
Re: Worst idea in centuries (Score:2)
Do you live in the 21st century?
At the least the name is funny (Score:2)
What is really funny is the government admitting it will take 7 years to implement something that would take a script kiddie a few weeks to whack together.
All the downsides of both bash and bitcoin ... (Score:2)
It's literally Crypto with none of the benefits - but can also be used instead of cash, but with none of the benefits, and with all the downsides of both ...
Forget Bitcoin. Forget Monero. (Score:1)
Immune to tracing, banning, legislating, and regulating.