Topic: ECB starts 24 month digital euro project. - page 3. (Read 522 times)

Like OP said it will take them a lot longer than 5 years, they are not known as a group that can act quickly on anything. Hell UK took 3 elections and few presidents just to get out of EU even while everyone there wanted (okay not everyone but majority enough), so I doubt that it would be 5 years of anything. I assume that minimum 5 years will be spent just to see how it may work, like experiments and testing and so forth, countless resources will be spent (money, man hours, many other smaller things) and eventually it will take another 6-7 years to actually build it and make it work.

I say minimum of 10 years before EU has digital euro as a project ready for the whole world. I know it is a sad situation but that is how they work, they are very very very slow at what they do and the amount of paperwork back and forth causing things to get delayed is a common thing.

This in indeed another point to highlight and extract the pros and cons, I know there are quite a lot of countries working on the possibility of launching CBDC's sooner rather than later, as a result of the finances required as well logistics and other whatnots, it's mostly developed countries that are actually obsessed with the CBDC, regulation and anti-Bitcoin ideology.

But having said that, I find it somewhat surprising that even developing/underdeveloped countries are actually weighing up the possibilities of launching their own CBDC in reaction to Bitcoin, it doesn't even end there, they are also issuing sanctions and regulations at Bitcoin and dex crypto (just as Nigeria did), I find this to be counterproductive, so many of this country's do not have a functioning economy, plus there is a high rate of unemployment in their land, ordinarily, stopping Bitcoin should be the last thing they should think of when you consider the myriad of economic problems facing them, I find it to just be a clear case of misplaced priority.

What can the ECB do?

That's the question which needs an answer. So they're launching a "project to investigate the potential of a digital euro", and that's fine, but do they have the right to go further? When the ECB was created, I doubt there was anything in its mandate allowing it to create a digital currency. I guess it would require all eurozone members to agree on the project with the same terms and without conditions. I'm not expecting that anytime soon.

Their plans to create a CBDC have been around for a long time, even my developing country is already preparing for the realization of the CBDC, I read on the official Instagram of my country's central bank that they are in the research stage and it will take quite a long time.  Implicitly they did create CBDC as a form of their awareness of the development of BTC so that this will be a comparison asset for BTC that already existed before.

This is the question of all questions when we talk about the common currency in the EU (EUR), compared to the US and the US dollar. The stakes, in this case, are incomparably higher than in the US in every sense, because you yourself well conclude that the eventual collapse of the US dollar will probably not affect the collapse of the US as it exists today, but the collapse of the euro would have terrible consequences for the EU.

You probably remember the Greek crisis that started around 2010 (depending on the source), which resulted in the largest attempt to save a country in the eurozone so far, and estimates say that it cost around 320 billion EUR, which puts Greece in the position of a certain debt slavery at least until 2060. Everyone may wonder if it was justified to save Greece or let it sink, but there was no doubt from Germany at the time - I think they would pay much more to save Greece (and thus the eurozone and the euro), just to save the idea of how the EU can actually function in the form in which it now stands. You can read a much better and more detailed explanation that can give you some answers to your question in this article.

While the EU may seem compact from afar, for those of us who live here it is far from it - there are several large states whose influence actually controls all important decisions, and the UK did not like it, as some other members do not like it - especially Hungary, which is trying to pursue some kind of sovereign policy within the EU, so it has been called a rogue member state for some time.

The UK had big problems with leaving the EU despite not being part of the eurozone (luckily for them), but any other country that would try to leave would face a big problem in that case - the exit ticket has a lot of zeros, for many states hard to reach amount. The most important task that EU bureaucrats are currently focused on is not to allow some new Brexit, because regardless of some new countries waiting to become members, another exit of an important member state would be the beginning of the end.

VERY FAR. That’s why it’s to the utmost importance that Bitcoin is given the ability to scale out in order to decentralize further, and over-shoot security. Then what design-decisions should the Core developers make? Smaller blocks, layered protocol.

This makes absolute no sense at all.
Monetary policy is controlled by the central bank by raising or lowering the basic interest rate of the economy. This has nothing to do with CDBC or Stable coins.

There are also several ways to control stable coins. They are all backed up by real fiat/EUR. Those companies can be easily forced to have a limited supply or just face lots of fines or something like that, for example.

People in cryptospace are overestimating what stable coins can really do. Stable coins are just a private debt, people lend 1 USD to binance and receive BUSD back, because binance promises to pay back 1USD for each BUSD.

I think an EURO CBDC is going to happen not because they are affraid of stable coins, but because it is the evolution of money. It will be a better form of money, which will in long term bring benefits to the economy as it is faster and cheaper to transfer.

Edit: The only cryptocurrency which would really affect central banks to control monetary policy is Bitcoin.

You would hope, given that the entire currency is both digital and centralized, they could also finally figure out how to make transfers between bank accounts in less than the 3 to 5 days we have to wait at the moment for some wire transfers.

Perhaps, as an EU citizen, you can provide your opinion on the following: Are the stakes that bit higher in the EU compared to the US? Should there be a complete collapse of our monetary system and USD becomes worthless, then obviously the fallout will be massive, but at the end of it, I would still expect the United States to exist with all 50 states. However, if the Euro collapses, can we say the same about the fate of the EU itself? Would the collapse of the Euro lead to the collapse of the EU?

Why would I be? Well CBDC is nothing but a digital fiat whose only advantages I see is that there would no longer be a need to produce banknotes and coins, transport and insure physical money. It remains a centralized and even more controlled means of complete control over one's finances.


I put China in this context only because of the link to their CBDC and the fact that its launch coincided with the banning of crypto mining - it is logical to ask whether the EU might be able to introduce some similar measures (though perhaps not so drastic) before introducing the digital euro. China is not a dictatorship in the sense that it is ruled by one man, but by the Communist Party - that one man at its head is only formally the strongest figure.

We can discuss the fact that every country within the EU is independent, but you should know that 70% of all laws are passed in the EU Parliament and are only confirmed at the level of member states - small states have almost no influence - I say this from the experience of my country which accepts everything (even laws that harm national interests) because it has no mechanisms or responsible political leaders who want the best for their people.


That's true, many EU countries have very good laws when it comes to cryptocurrencies, but that doesn't mean there won't be changes - they are on the way and coming for sure, it's just a matter of time.

Europe is Considering Crypto Regulation

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Of course, it has nothing to do with what they cite as the main problems, because as you wrote, the EUR is on the same path as the USD, and over time it will lose its value - these pandemic measures will only further accelerate the process. The fear of losing control of the financial system has always been the biggest problem of the governing structures that govern the people through it. A man who is his own bank and absolutely controls his finances is the nightmare of every banker and politician.

Maybe they've realized they can't. They can regulate centralized exchanges as much as they want, but they can't stop people trading peer to peer. They can force KYC on every online exchange, service, and web wallet, but they can't stop people from mixing their coins and holding them themselves. They can force some mining pools to exclude certain "blacklisted" transactions, but they can't force every mining pool to do that (not least of all the ones in other jurisdictions). They can force payment processors like BitPay to collect KYC and track their customers, but they can't stop merchants from just accepting bitcoin directly. I'm sure they will continue to pass ever more ridiculous regulations, but nothing they do can stop me from holding bitcoin myself and sending it directly to another party in exchange for goods or services.

So perhaps they hope that by launching CBDCs they can simply entice people away from bitcoin altogether, rather than regulate against it.

I meant the same oeleo but didn't quite came out right. That is why quoted the El Salvador example..LOL. It is interesting that the banks always refrain from naming Bitcoin directly and just use the label "Private Digital currencies". I wonder if a jury was to deliberate on this in any of the presumably great democracies, would they classify Bitcoin as Private? Can Open Source Software be labelled as "Private"?

If not, then what do they have against Bitcoin. They may label everything else which is a foundation/ corporation coin (ETH, ADA etc) as private, but not Bitcoin.

The only thing that needs to be adjudged is that should state have the sole authority to judge what money is or how people exchange value? Going openly against Bitcoin is like going against democracy and freedom to choose. This is why they will continue to be subtle in undermining Bitcoin. Of course not so much in Russia, China or third world countries.

That is the most logical course that things should take. Though it takes one back to the same question. How far will nation-states go in their pursuit to suppress bitcoin and stop it from loosening their grip on power?

Many nations are in similar hoard to develop their CDBC and exploring the concept of blockchain for the same purpose and hiring cryptography experts but it will take long time to build it like you said for more than 5 years at take for EU to launch their digital euro.At that time we can expect that btc already be used on local stores and you just scan a qr code and simply make LN use and payment is done.They are stepping into digitalization but still it will be center oriented and you can still be denied Authorization of your funds through these but on the other side btc will provide you financial support and privacy at the same time and it will your funds.This time it is alternate to fiat but in future the condition will be reversed so wait for that.

I believe in that 2 years, they’ll discover the truth for themselves. That there’s nothing that they can do to put the genie back in the bottle. The invention of Bitcoin has opened a Pandora’s Box with new possibilities. It definitely WILL BE harder for the central bankers to control the monetary system, but they did that to themselves.

There is no doubt that at the stage of preparing for the release of the digital euro, they will seriously tackle the regulation of the circulation of cryptocurrency and private, commercial stablecoins, as the government of China is doing now. It's just that China has already come to this point, and Europe is at least five years behind them. However, this may happen earlier, already now some EU officials are calling for stricter regulation of the cryptocurrency.

Yes, they have been looking at it for quite a while and now seem to have come to a solution, but no idea what to make of it.

The Euro itself is a failed project. Everyone who is not ideologically blinded can see that. It won't get any better if they now introduce an e-Euro on a centralized blockchain and thus shift even more power away from the banks to the central bank. The Euro has failed, with or without blockchain.

Haven't they been "exploring" this for like the past 5 years already?

Whilst that is very much possible, the question, or rather concern is what damaging measures the different governments (countries) that make up the European Union will take within this next five years and definitely more as they work on their CBDC's. There will prolly be tighter regulations as well as policies initiated to discredit Bitcoin as not being safe, reliable...or whatever compared to their CBDC's, obviously before CBDC's come on board, Bitcoin would have gone a very long way, my only concern is actually how many users will be convinced and cajoled into believing some of the lies the government will cook up to try and see if CBDC's will be more used than Bitcoin.
Isn't that were they are making a mistake, should CBDC's which are centralized be launched in 'reaction' to Bitcoin, I mean, we all know Bitcoin is decentralized, and not just that, there's freedom and control to use your funds just the way you think is right, but the digital dollar, Euro, Yuan, or any centralized digital (shit) coin is actually the opposite of that, should the government not actually be 'trying to stop' Bitcoin with more regulations (I know sooner or later they'll run out of it), rather than creating digital currencies that will work (and be printed) almost in the same way as their fiat currencies

I don't think stablecoins will ever take over. Bitcoin might, but not stablecoins. Since every stablecoin is based on fiat and claims to be backed up with fiat, then they all inherit all the same problems as fiat has - centralized, inflationary, seizable, not private, not censorship resistant, etc. On top of all that, you add in a further centralized third party (the stablecoin issuer), and all the risks that that brings - insolvency, fractional banking, scams, hacks, etc. Stablecoins really are the worst of both worlds. I'd rather use a CBDC than a stablecoin.

I think they are actually worried about bitcoin. It is bitcoin which has all the features they fear, and which has the widest use, widest adoption, widest user base. And after all, if they really wanted they could just seize all the fiat belonging to a stablecoin issuer and destroy that stablecoin literally overnight.

I'm not too sure about the idea of launching that EU did and later on it will be far behind. considering the rapid growth of crypto, while the EU still has to wait 5 years to become viable in the market. like you said, they are trying to be competitors without saying it outright. but will it be in vain when cryptocurrency is already 1000 steps ahead of the EU regarding its Digital Euro program?

They'll probably conduct some kind of policy that'll make people get away from Bitcoin. The UK already has a very draconic crypto law and worse is possible to happen at any time. Just make it a pain in the ass to calculate your taxes and to declare your gains/losses and enough will sit on the side rather than joining the game.

As o_e_l_e_o said, they're afraid of us because no matter who was the guy/team who released BTC, since its existence the world finally has one way of going off-grid without an authority checking up on you. No matter who you are and what you've done, you ain't discriminated.