[Sytten]

For me that would be an effective way to target government money to people that really need it. Another comment pointed the expiring money, specialized money, etc as a distopia future but this is only if we let it become that IMHO.

There is also a utopia side to that coin where money like UBI can be easily distributed to all but can only be used to buy necessities like food, shelters, etc but cannot be used to buy stocks and prop up a bubble in the stock market like a lot of the stimulus checks were during the pandemic. One could also easily target programmable money toward low income people without needing to wait a tax statement or having to double check at the end of the year.

Programmable money is a really powerful concept and I do think it is inevitable that we will come to it at some point since it lowers of the cost of implenting economic policies and increases the speed at which they are deployed. But we do need to make sure enough laws are on the book to prevent authoritarian use. In a stable and alive democracy that should not be too much of an issue, but elsewhere...

[spaceman_2020]

India fixed this problem with “direct benefit transfer” straight to bank accounts. And this was before the current UPI system had really taken off.

Really, if a country of 1.4 billion people where beneficiaries can number more than the populations of most countries, I don’t see why you would need CBDCs at all.

[Sytten]

I would argue that yes it can be done outside of a platform like this, but each time you want to implement a new policy you need to talk to all private actors and force them to implement your policy.

With programmable money (think ETH smart contracts for the government) a policy could be roll out to the entire population uniformly in a matter of days.

This is why this concept is so powerful and is inevitable IMHO.

[hocuspocus]

> I would argue that yes it can be done outside of a platform like this, but each time you want to implement a new policy you need to talk to all private actors and force them to implement your policy.

And you know what, many jurisdictions have done exactly that, and brought massive improvements to their banking infrastructure in the last decades. Private actors either comply or lose their banking/credit/payment licenses, it's as simple as that.

[Sytten]

Ho I do not disagree but coming from Canada where we have been talking about open banking for the past 10 years without any progress I will take a smart contract any day over the big 5 banks that we have today.

The question is not if it can be done outside of the platform, it is how much time it takes. I would encourage you to try to code a smart contract even if you dont like the concept, it is eye opening.

The fact that would have a standardized VM for money where you can write small programs to implement your law is just another level frlm what we have.

[hocuspocus]

So you don't trust your government to come up with the right legal framework... but you want the central bank to take over the entire retail banking sector?

[spaceman_2020]

The flip side of the argument is that it can also be easily weaponized and used to financially cut off “undesirables”. Throw in some digital identity, some secretive “social scores”, and you can have a situation that gives governments overwhelming power over individuals and their rights.

Let’s not pretend that our governments are above abusing such power.

[idiotsecant]

programmable money is a good thing. Permissioned programmable money is a bad thing.

[Sytten]

I don't think you can separate the two honestly. As soon as you have a smart contract for something you can make it permissioned. Only human laws outside of tech could prevent that so I am guessing each country will be different.