What if they operated more like a digital/hardware wallet similar to Apple Pay? No physical card would be necessary…
Of course that would cede some degree of anonymity unless the individual used a burner device/proactively managed linkage if their identity to the device…
Well like I said I’m not sure if they’re still around but several years ago they were from $20-$100. I’m not sure it’d be as difficult as perhaps you’d think. I could trade $25 iTunes gift cards, Amazon cards, etc to anyone who would accept that as payment and those are readily available on the shelves. Not quite the same thing and I would never frame the DBC’s as “notes” because that is asking for trouble but that is what they could effectively be. Also there are Bitcoin ATM’s all over the world which would be similar to what I’m suggesting with the kiosk/atm idea.
These DBC’s are always intended to purchase network resources so it’s no different to any different gift card imo but people can agree on and transact the value of the notes or even the gift cards if they wanted. I’m assuming the code would be under a scratch off surface so as there is no tampering or stealing of any balance. Not sure how that would work on printed notes tbh.
Then they should not give cash to you at a bank.
We here in Australia can get them at the local post office and the ones I am thinking of can have 500$ put on them.
Article 12(d) of the EU directive 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing:
(d) the payment instrument cannot be funded with anonymous electronic money;
Interesting, DBC can be de-anonymised by the bearer so we have options. Could be interesting days for sure.
Actually, the definition of electronic money doesn’t seem immediately applicable, as can be seen by the definition of issuer.
The issuer in this case is the network, which is clearly different from the defined entities.
Article 3, EU directive 2015/849
16. ‘electronic money’ means electronic money as defined in point (2) of Article 2 of Directive 2009/110/EC=>
Article 2, EU Directive 2009/110/EC
1.
‘electronic money institution’ means a legal person that has been granted authorisation under Title II to issue electronic money;
2.
‘electronic money’ means electronically, including magnetically, stored monetary value as represented by a claim on the issuer which is issued on receipt of funds for the purpose of making payment transactions as defined in point 5 of Article 4 of Directive 2007/64/EC, and which is accepted by a natural or legal person other than the electronic money issuer;
3.
‘electronic money issuer’ means entities referred to in Article 1(1), institutions benefiting from the waiver under Article 1(3) and legal persons benefiting from a waiver under Article 9;
But that aside, a business engaging in selling such gift cards for example, should consult legal advice on the applicability of these regulations.
- This Directive lays down the rules for the pursuit of the activity of issuing electronic money to which end the Member States shall recognise the following categories of electronic money issuer:
(a)
credit institutions as defined in point 1 of Article 4 of Directive 2006/48/EC including, in accordance with national law, a branch thereof within the meaning of point 3 of Article 4 of that Directive, where such a branch is located within the Community and its head office is located outside the Community, in accordance with Article 38 of that Directive;
(b)
electronic money institutions as defined in point 1 of Article 2 of this Directive including, in accordance with Article 8 of this Directive and national law, a branch thereof, where such a branch is located within the Community and its head office is located outside the Community;
(c)
post office giro institutions which are entitled under national law to issue electronic money;
(d)
the European Central Bank and national central banks when not acting in their capacity as monetary authority or other public authorities;
(e)
Member States or their regional or local authorities when acting in their capacity as public authorities.
Re: Legalities yeah I was wondering about that. If one were to set up a DBC kiosk I’m wondering if the gov’t would deem it an “illegal money laundering scheme” or some such and try to shut it down. I mean it’s not but you know how government works.
But if you have a kiosk that accepts cash someone hat some point has to go to the kiosk and transfer the physical cash to a bank account somewhere. And that bank account has to be owned by someone. Which means at some point some human has to exchange fiat currency for crypto of some kind in order to make the switch from fiat to safecoin or vice versa to refill the kiosk. Yes some exchanging can be done within the kiosk itself but one has to make sure there’s always enough safecoin/cash in the kiosk for it to function. Which means there’s a vunerability there.
I do agree with you this whole thing needs to be broken down so more people can more easily understand it. I’ve been in the cryptosphere awhile and I’m still having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around the whole thing tho I’ll admit it does sound exciting. But I can see the potential for a lot of low tech folks who rely solely on cash and who are wary of technology in general. There are tons of unbanked people out there for which something like this could be a godsend.
Isn’t this a security vunerability in and of itself? Can anything be done to minimize this risk?
The directive (EU) 2018/843 extends its range of application to virtual currencies.
(8) Providers engaged in exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies (that is to say coins and banknotes that are designated as legal tender and electronic money, of a country, accepted as a medium of exchange in the issuing country) as well as custodian wallet providers are under no Union obligation to identify suspicious activity. Therefore, terrorist groups may be able to transfer money into the Union financial system or within virtual currency networks by concealing transfers or by benefiting from a certain degree of anonymity on those platforms. It is therefore essential to extend the scope of Directive (EU) 2015/849 so as to include providers engaged in exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies as well as custodian wallet providers. For the purposes of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), competent authorities should be able, through obliged entities, to monitor the use of virtual currencies. Such monitoring would provide a balanced and proportional approach, safeguarding technical advances and the high degree of transparency attained in the field of alternative finance and social entrepreneurship.
(9) The anonymity of virtual currencies allows their potential misuse for criminal purposes. The inclusion of providers engaged in exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies and custodian wallet providers will not entirely address the issue of anonymity attached to virtual currency transactions, as a large part of the virtual currency environment will remain anonymous because users can also transact without such providers. To combat the risks related to the anonymity, national Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) should be able to obtain information allowing them to associate virtual currency addresses to the identity of the owner of virtual currency. In addition, the possibility to allow users to self-declare to designated authorities on a voluntary basis should be further assessed.
(10) Virtual currencies should not to be confused with electronic money as defined in point (2) of Article 2 of Directive 2009/110/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (5), with the larger concept of ‘funds’ as defined in point (25) of Article 4 of Directive (EU) 2015/2366 of the European Parliament and of the Council (6), nor with monetary value stored on instruments exempted as specified in points (k) and (l) of Article 3 of Directive (EU) 2015/2366, nor with in-games currencies, that can be used exclusively within a specific game environment. Although virtual currencies can frequently be used as a means of payment, they could also be used for other purposes and find broader applications such as means of exchange, investment, store-of-value products or use in online casinos. The objective of this Directive is to cover all the potential uses of virtual currencies.
In the article 2 the following points are added:
(g) providers engaged in exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies;
(h)custodian wallet providers;
I’m not a lawyer either, but I’m afraid the sale of this kind of product would fall within the scope of these regulations.
Even if you are correct, which you may be. It still needs to be be done for the jurisdictions where it may be allowed.
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