GNU Taler begins operating in Switzerland, distributed by the Taler Operations AG. Gnu Taler aims to be a “digital wallet” and has been used by the swiss national bank as well as the european national bank as a example for how a digital currency handed out by the state could work. It aims to be as privacy preserving as cash for the buyer while not allowing the seller to evade taxes.
Currently the Taler is brought out by a special organisation, the “Taler Operations AG”, and not the national bank, although both the national bank as well as the Taler Team have shown interest in a official digial currency by the national bank based on the Taler. But we need to relativate as the national council has stated that the introduction of a digital currency would probably take relatively major legislative changes and therefore take a bit of time.
Thing is, most money is already digitised and tracked. Taler has the genius of giving (hopefully) enough accountability on the receiving end to satisfy tax and counter-fraud, whilst at the same time giving privacy and anonymity to the spender.
That’s my main problem. They had a chance to make it fully anonymous and fungible, yet decided to implement an intentional vulnerability to reveal the receiving party.
I don’t think they really had that chance. It’s there in the docs about it: they implemented receiver accountability deliberately so European governments might be willing to accept it.