@root @katka @ocean Actually, Taler seems like the most stupid idea I have ever seen.

Where is the cash stored? Well, on your device.

What if you loose your device? Well, you lost your cash.

What if you want to refund a payment? Well, you cannot.

That could be alright and fair as crypto has the exact same downsides. However:

How do I make sure my bank will accept my Taler coins? Well, you hope they will?

They cannot just refuse, right? Well, you could complain to auditors and regulators if they don't.

Well, if they refuse to accept it, can I just keep holding that cash? No, since your cash EXPIRES.

How do I keep my cash then? You need to keep your wallet open, for it to exchange the old cash for the new.

Wait, but what if my bank doesn't accept my cash? You loose it.

What if I don't open the wallet? You loose it.

Is it at least free? Nope. Fees all around. Even if you fail a transfer.

How could you fail a transfer? Well, you need to make sure the receiver wallet is active.

@root @katka @ocean
Well, when I pay I am sure it is active, right? Well yes, but your payment can be combined into an aggregate transfer done at the end of a month. At this time, you are not sure if the receiving wallet is active anymore.

Combined payments? What's that about? Well, your merchant probably wants to cut down on fees so instead of accepting all payments immediately, they pile that into a single transfer at the end of a month. They know that you paid though, so they can still give you the product, without receiving the cash.

I still want to try it out. I want my privacy! Well, that's a bummer. You can't. No bank supports it. And I don't see any payment providers getting into this either, let alone merchants.

You are better off using cash or Monero. At least you own your money that way.

@root @katka @ocean I would never trust a user to make a proper backup.
Money in bills doesn't expire like the Taler coins do.
Im sorry for assuming that Taler didn't implement refunds, they clearly do, I didn't do enough research on that.

Any potential money loss is absolutely not acceptable, especially in digital currency.

There are no chargebacks either. What if I get scammed and my money gets taken away?
Or someone gets access to my wallet (like a kid) and sends money to someone?

Also, what incentives do banks get for using this, over their own classical systems.

Also, is the Taler system under the same regulatory and oversight?
There are reasons banks are scared to replace code that they keep maintained from the 90s.

@root @katka @ocean

In poland we have a system called blik.
While it is not privacy preserving, it does everything paypal, revolut, Gwallet, Apple wallet etc do.

It is widely supported, easy to do. You don't even need a card to use it.
Just a bank account is enough to easy pay in person at any shop or online at any retailer.

It's a simple, easy solution for the customers and merchants and basically a requirement to implement by banks.

How is Taler going to replace that? By being privacy preserving?

No bank would want that, unless they are swiss or something.