[kwlug-disc] Bank of Canada launching public consultations on a digital dollar

[Doug Moen]

They tried to launch a digital currency in 2012, called MintChip.

The original marketing material said "cost-effectively addresses the very-low-value transaction markets, protects privacy, is available to everyone and emulates the characteristics of cash" and "works off-line, enables person-to-person payments". The National Post reported "The system has no centralized database. “They’re calling it anonymous … their intention is that it’s no more associated with who you are than [traditional] currency,” said Jacqueline Chilton with Glenbrook Partners, a California-based payment consultant."

https://web.archive.org/web/20130120092850/http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/devguide/index.php
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/mintchip-royal-canadian-mint

The initiative fizzled once it became clear that this was actually a surveillance system in disguise.

I would be thrilled if Canada were to create a truly anonymous and peer to peer digital cash, with eg the privacy properties of the failed DigiCash initiative from 1989. This would make me proud to be a Canadian. I doubt that the law enforcement / authoritarian faction of the government would be happy about this, but their involvement could also doom the project (again). When Mintchip was initiated (and failed), it was under the Harper conservatives. I could hope for a different outcome under the Liberals (who to their credit legalized cannabis) -- we'll see.

I'm unclear on how you implement truly anonymous digital cash that doesn't undergo Bitcoin style inflation. Is it possible to have true anonymity and still peg the value to the Canadian dollar? Canadian cash comprises unforgeable physical objects that are minted and withdrawn by the Canadian mint, and it is exchanged anonymously. Controlling the amount of cash in circulation is probably important in setting the value. Unforgeable digital tokens that are supplied by the mint and that can be anonymous exchanged between individuals ought to be possible. Any crypto experts want to comment on whether what I want is feasible?

One of my concerns about a Canadian anonymous digital cash is that the people who control the conversation about this will demonize it in exactly the way that Bitcoin has been successfully demonized. It's increasingly difficult nowadays to find people in the general tech community who endorse the idea of cryptocurrency, because we all been brainwashed by news stories in the tech media that equates crypto currency with criminality and fraud and con artists. I've certainly been affected by these news stories in the way I think about cryptocurrency. So now I have these opinions about it that didn't originate in my brain and do not reflect my personal values.

Doug.

On Fri, May 12, 2023, at 10:58 AM, Chris Frey wrote:
> https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2023/05/bank-canada-launches-public-consultations-digital-dollar/
>
> Consultation runs from May 8 to June 19, which may be of interest
> to some here.
>
> - Chris
>
>
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