The Bank of England is currently running ‘working groups’ on aspects of their #CBDC proposals.

Bitcoin Policy UK have submitted the paper in the link below, giving detailed feedback on our privacy concerns.

TLDR: While we remain opposed to the creation of a #CBDC in its entirety, our view is that the ‘least worst’ option would be a form of anonymous Chaumian e-cash, which no third party can monitor, control or censor - namely, a digital bearer equivalent to physical cash.

To quote Silkie Carlo of Big Brother Watch, “Anonymous, private, low threshold e-cash could have a future - but Western Countries like Britain won’t accept anything that looks like a ‘spycoin’.”

Key points from our paper:

1. We remain opposed in principle to the creation of a digital pound or CBDC, and our policy position is unchanged - that it is a solution in search of a problem; one that will serve no useful purpose not already served by existing forms of digital money.

2. The proposals to give ‘tiered’ access to the #CBDC in return for the surrender of more and more personal data should be abandoned.

3. These proposals effectively treat personal and transaction data as a form of currency themselves - the digital pound would become more useful the more personal data is surrendered by its users, who would pay for increased usability with the currency of their personal data. It is therefore an unfair and exclusionary model of money.

4. There is little to no sense in expending time, personnel, money and other resources in replicating a system that will be broadly identical to the modern system of commercial bank accounts, while having none of the advantages of the physical cash system. If a CBDC has to exist at all, then better privacy may be afforded by the implementation of Chaumian e-cash.

5. For the Bank’s CBDC truly to replace physical cash, or to offer a genuine digital alternative, it needs to mirror the key features of physical cash. These include being a bearer instrument, offering strong anonymity for transactions and ownership, (the former two characteristics being of particular relevance to this privacy consultation) and must also allow direct claims against the central bank by the public.

6. Without these characteristics, the CBDC is unlikely to be attractive enough to compete with existing digital payment options, leading to public mistrust, low adoption, high running costs, and eventually the failure of the entire enterprise - which is not an outcome with which we as an organisation would be disappointed.

#NoSpycoin #NoToCBDCs

https://www.bitcoinpolicy.uk/post/privacy-and-the-digital-pound-resisting-threats-to-privacy-and-financial-freedom 

 Credit to 1f52b_xyz , with whom we discussed the privacy benefits of e-cash and to whose paper below we refer in our own paper:

https://1f52b.xyz/article/2023/06/the-digital-pound-a-new-form-of-money-for-households-and-businesses/ 

 🤙 

 Sounds good but it'll be ignored - they won't care about public perception, they'll shape public perception, create it. 

They'll start with anyone on benefits. Then they'll champion restricting certain payments for lottery, drink, gambling at. People will cheer for it, because why should people who don't work have nice things, right?

Next they'll start insisting that state employees then contractors accept it. They'll have no choice, they'll be strongarmed in to it. 

They'll let the process grow gradually from that point on, no sense rushing it. It'll be just like the switch from cash to contactless again...people will resist then, but by bit, for one reason or another, they'll give in. 

Eventually you'll have to pay your taxes using their shitcoin tokens. It won't mean much by that point, since the £, digital or not, will be circling the drain. But still, they'll make you pay.

The only way out is resistance.

COVID showed us how powerful they are and how the vast majority will do as they're told, when they're told, even to thier own detriment.  

 Thanks. I'm fully expecting it to be ignored, but important to get on the record nonetheless.

You also set out a plausible playbook for them. But I find certain things encouraging - not least that the more people learn about CBDCs, the more they hate them. The Bank can't create one without a change in primary legislation. We need to make sure MPs realize that if they vote for one, they'll be punished at ballot box. a
All they care about is keeping their seats.

Also we need to keep showing people where the lifeboats are, to make sure they have a means to transact even after CBDC imposition.