Getting ready to operate GNU Taler in Germany

I don't see how EU regulators would allow payment privacy in any meaningful way.

It will be choked out at key junctions with KYC in the same way crypto has.

I'm a happy GLS Bank customer, and I've just learned about its involvement in Taler. Pretty awesome.

Europe desperately needs its own digital payment solutions to reduce its dependence on US companies and its exposure to sanctions that could target EU citizens if the president has a bad day.

GLS is also on board with Wero, which, unfortunately, hasn't seen big adoption yet.

I really hope Taler takes off.

So this is trying to compete against Wero, which is being backed by most major western European banks? I wish them luck, but I somewhat doubt they can compete against that.

Never having heard of it before, the moment I read "cash like tokens in your account" I was immediately out. Also claiming buyer privacy when the money ultimately has to come from a bank transaction or another digital transaction leaving some sort of trail is a false illusion.

tldr of my understanding (do correct me if I'm wrong):

Neither buyer nor seller are anonymous. Your bank knows your ID-verified identity and that you have deposited X talers. However, nobody knows when, where, or even if you spend those talers. You are free to spend talers on eg. a e-book about Tiananmen Square and the bank/state will never know that you did. The seller, on the other hand, has no protections, and will be destroyed for selling an e-book about Tiananmen Square. Also, you can't realistically buy a physical book about Tiananmen Square because you will give up your address to the shipper and by extension to the state.

If my understanding is correct... it's not good enough. In a free society we should be able to both purchase and publish e-books about Tiananmen Square, and this does not permit that.

I think GNU Taler missed their chance of adoption since the world has moved on and was impatient with their progress.

Blockchains that support stablecoins are already here and millions of people already use them (and soon agents will use them as well).

All for worldwide, instant and extremely low fee payments and transfers.

I haven't looked at Taler in a while. What capabilities do they have to transfer money around without being surveilled? Also are transactions final and irreversible?