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authorJeffrey Burdges <burdges@gnunet.org>2017-10-18 18:54:14 +0200
committerJeffrey Burdges <burdges@gnunet.org>2017-10-18 18:54:14 +0200
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Initial e-krona application conversion to latex
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-rw-r--r--ekrona/taler-arch-full.sh1
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diff --git a/ekrona/e-krona.tex b/ekrona/e-krona.tex
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+\documentclass {article} % {acmart}
+
+\usepackage{url}
+\usepackage{eurosym}
+\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
+% \usepackage{lmodern}
+% \usepackage{verbatim}
+\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
+\usepackage{graphicx}
+
+\def\UoL{University of Luxembourg}
+
+\begin{document}
+\pagestyle{headings}
+\thispagestyle{empty}
+
+\begin{center}
+{\large Taler for eKrona}
+
+\medskip
+
+% \begin{tabular}{l l}
+% Project Acronym & LAC - Latent Anonymous Commons (LAKE) \\
+% Principal Investigator & Jeffrey Burdges \\
+% Host Institution & University of Luxembourg \\
+% Main Partner & pEp SA \\
+% \end{tabular}
+\end{center}
+
+\def\red{} % FIXME
+
+
+\section*{Introduction}
+
+Taler Systems is developing a solution called Taler, that could easily fit the requirements of the e-krona project.
+
+Taler is an open source system based on a wallet and a central exchange. It provides instant one-click payments, can offer payer anonymity with receiver transparency for tax purposes. It is fast and cheap, and can hence also cover micro-payments economically (payments of the order of 1 cents).
+
+The USPs of the Taler Systems are as follows:
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item All operations provide cryptographically secured, with mathematical
+ proofs for courts and auditors
+\item Customer can remain anonymous, as with cash if desired
+\item Merchants are identifiable in each payment they receive
+\item Payments are in existing currencies
+\item Fraud is mostly eliminated, especially compared to credit cards
+\item Scalable, fast protocol implementation
+\item Suitable for micro-payments due to very low transaction costs
+\item Ease of use (one-click, instant)
+\item Open standard protocol without patents, with free reference implementations
+\end{itemize}
+
+Taler is intended to run with the following architectural elements.
+
+\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{taler-arch-full.pdf}
+
+
+{\red Describe general functioning of Taler (ONLY AS MUCH AS FITS ON THIS PAGE -
+audit, hash of transaction, etc)}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+\section*{*What would a technical solution for a register-based e-krona look like?*}
+
+We imagine a hybrid solution, as described in the question below. {\red [Can we use blockchain for the register-based component? They seem to put a lot of emphasize on system resilience. (Christian to update according to possibilities???)]}
+
+\section*{*What would a technical solution for a value-based e-krona look like?*}
+
+We imagine a hybrid solution, as described in the question below.
+
+\section*{*What is your vision for an e-krona, are there other possible solutions than register-based and value-based that you consider to be more appropriate?*}
+
+We imagine a possible e-Krona solution based on the Taler system to be a hybrid solution, with a register-based component and a value based component, in order to fulfil the maximum requirements outlined in ‘The Riksbank’s e-Krona project’ report.
+
+The e-krona Taler wallet can exist on smartphones, in web-browsers, on smartcard and on secure USB sticks. It is filled via wire-transfer to the Taler exchange (Riksbank can define who is entitled to exchange Swedish kronar into e-krona), which will create Taler coins (i.e. e-krona) cryptographically and deposit those anonymously with a blind signature into the corresponding wallet. At the same time, the exchange creates an escrow account for the wallet at the Riksbank and deposits the kronas in that account. These 2 elements are value-based for the wallet and register-based for the escrow-account at the Riksbank: hence our description of e-Krona Taler as hybrid system.
+
+The Taler System addresses the following requirements outlined in the report:
+
+\begin{tabular}{l l}
+a) Specified in Swedish krona
+ & Designed for all existing currencies \\
+
+b) Payment size
+ & Designed to handle micropayments as well as larger payments between consumers, companies and authorities \\
+
+c) Direct claim on Riksbank
+ & Via escrow accounts opened by the exchange automatically with the Riksbank to hold the
+ escrow amounts. In addition, the Riksbank could entitle the holder of e-krona to change them anytime into Swedish kronor. With this the holder has a direct claim on the Riksbank and it might not be necessary to change existing legislation. \\
+
+d) Accessible in real-time
+ & System designed for 24/7 operations \\
+
+e) Payments in real-time
+ & One click instant payments with 24/7 operations \\
+
+f) Offline payments
+ & Payer can be offline, connects with USB key, smart card, NFC, etc. Exchange must be online. \\
+
+g) Anonymous payments
+ & System designed for payers to be anonymous if they want to. Receiver is never anonymous. \\
+
+h) e-Krona account
+ & Escrow account is created automatically based on {\red Wallet ID? (Christian to update according to possibilities???).} \\
+
+i) Riksbank functions
+ & Holds the escrow accounts, can be the operator of the exchange and guarantees the
+exchange of e-krona in Swedish kronor at all times. \\
+
+j) No bank account necessary
+ & The e-krona can be made accessible to groups without bank accounts if the exchange operator is also accepting cash. \\
+
+k) Possibility of making interest payments?
+ & {\red (Christian to update according to possibilities???)} \\
+
+l) Connection to existing payment systems
+ & Wire transfers, Debit and credit cards can be used to immediately fund the e-krona wallet. \\
+\end{tabular}
+
+This solution solves the problem of gaining access to cash and to risk-free assets as any Riksbank or government related facility could offer the exchange of e-kronas back to cash (as the Riksbank holds the e-Krona escrow funds) for people presenting themselves with their e-krona Taler wallet.
+
+At the same time, Taler addresses the inefficiencies of the existing systems by eliminating most fraud risks associated, for example, with credit cards, and facilitates the usage especially in e-commerce but also in the physical world by reducing the steps necessary (no credit card entry, no PIN, no authentication and authorisation necessary anymore).
+
+Taler can offer the same privacy as cash for the payer (could be limited to a EUR amount per transaction). {\red This limit could be removed if the payer/wallet owner contributes his identification to the account by a voluntary act. (Christian to update according to possibilities???)}
+
+\section*{*What challenges and opportunities do you envisage with each e-krona solution?}
+
+We envisage no major challenges with a e-Krona Taler solution outlined above, as the system is already up and running in an Alpha version with browser wallets. Further development is needed to create the wallets on other platforms and provide more interfaces to merchant systems.
+
+The main complexity we see would be the roll-out of the compatible functionality into the POS systems of merchants in the physical world. But this is no different from the challenges that established systems like SWISH, ... already solved and hence easy to estimate. If this project is Riksbank/government sponsored, that should not be a large.
+
+This outlined solution should have no major impact on monetary policy because the issues of e-krona are 1:1 backed by Swedish kronor in the escrow account at the Riksbank. But two things will happen temporarily – unless cash is used: Firstly, with the issuance of e-krona commercial bank money gets transformed into central bank money until the e-krona are spent and transformed back into Swedish kronar. And secondly, non-cash commercial bank money gets transformed into cash-like money until the e-krona are spent.
+
+\section*{*What is missing in our concept?*}
+
+We believe that concept described above fits together with the Taler designed system to quickly provide a viable, safe, easy-to-use, low-cost solution to introduce a digital krona as complement to cash, that offers most of the advantages of cash without its downsides, as all recipients of funds are always identifiable (and hence government friendly and discouraging fraud and other illegal businesses). In addition, such a solution based on Taler can be implemented quickly and the open standard protocol without patents with free reference implementations should facilitate fast implementation by all relevant parties.
+
+
+
+\paragraph{Contact:}
+
+\begin{center}
+\begin{tabular}{l l l}
+C. Grothoff & grothoff@taler.net & +4 78 692 68 94 \\
+L. Schumacher & schumacher@taler.net & +41 79 865 9365 \\
+M. Widmer & widmer@taler.net & +4179 900 40000 \\
+\end{tabular}
+\end{center}
+
+\end{document}
+
diff --git a/ekrona/taler-arch-full.sh b/ekrona/taler-arch-full.sh
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+inkscape ../taler-arch-full.svg --export-pdf=taler-arch-full.pdf