State digital currency will increase surveillance

• State and corporate digital currencies do not have much in common with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or ether. 

• As blockchain expert Sajida Zouarhi explains in

  The Satoshi Mystery

  on Arte, state digital currencies, such as the digital euro, use cryptocurrency technology to monitor our financial behavior.

By dint of seeing cryptocurrencies only as speculative assets, are we not missing out on the revolution? The European Central Bank announced on Thursday that it will launch a digital euro prototype in 2023, while China is preparing to launch its digital yuan shortly.

Facebook is working on its own currency through its Diem project, formerly Libra.

If the digital currencies of state and companies share technological bricks with crypto-currencies like bitcoin or ether, from a philosophical point of view, they have absolutely nothing to do.

Sajida Zouarhi, engineer and Blockchain expert, one of the 40 most influential women in France in 2019 according to

.

She takes part in the excellent documentary series

on Arte, discusses the dangers of a centralized digital currency.

What differentiates a cryptocurrency like bitcoin from a digital currency like Facebook's Diem (formerly Libre) or the Chinese digital yuan?

The fundamental difference between a public cryptocurrency and a corporate or state digital currency is decentralization. With a digital corporate currency or a digital state currency, we are on centralized currencies, with an actor who has all power over the issuance of this currency and its management. Bitcoin was created to meet cypherpunk values ​​[ensuring privacy through proactive use of cryptography]. The idea was to offer an alternative system to the existing financial system. State digital currencies are just another iteration of the current system. Business digital currencies are another tool for collecting user data. Facebook (Meta) already owns our social circles,and now they want access to our financial behavior.

"The State will have a real-time view of absolutely everything we do with this money"

How to explain that in one context, virtual currency protects privacy and in another, it becomes a monitoring tool?

Technology is one thing, the way we deploy it is another.

We can create a blockchain and decide that the nodes that run this protocol are centralized by a company.

It is then only a glorified database.

Conversely, we can create a blockchain and a currency, and hope that there will be thousands of people who will join this network, as we see with Bitcoin.

It's the execution that counts.

The digital currencies created by central banks will of course be managed centrally by these authorities.

They can use the term blockchain and try to trick people into thinking it's cryptocurrency, in reality it isn't.

What is it then?

The State is only modernizing a tool of power, which is its currency, to make it faster, more traceable and less expensive.

It will use cryptographic systems that will allow increased traceability and lower money management costs.

From the moment the first euro arrives in our bank account, it will be traced.

The state will have a real-time view of absolutely everything that is done with this money.

It is an incursion of the State into the personal finances of people even deeper, with direct withdrawals and especially a gradual disappearance of cash.

From the moment we have a digital currency, we can program it and create much more sophisticated tax logic than today.

In this case, should we fear the creation of a European digital currency?

You have to be wary. The real danger is not realizing the opportunity for financial freedom offered by bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. For the first time in history, a tool allows us to create our own currencies, our own financial services and to smash the elites in place. Many actors, especially the States, understood this, but not the citizens. Today, media coverage of cryptocurrencies is focused on speculation. People think they are about those who invest, who speculate, who make bets online. The day digital currencies arrive, we will tell them that they are better than bitcoin. "The real cryptocurrency is the state currency, the one in which we can trust". Finally,the citizens will have missed the revolution which is underway.

"The State is only modernizing a tool of power, which is its currency, to make it faster, more traceable and less expensive"

Why do cryptocurrencies, originally thought of as an alternative to the financial system, as The Satoshi Mystery shows, rather give the impression of being a capitalist tool?

It is an image that we give him.

People are more interested in making money than in changing systems.

But, there is a whole philosophy behind it.

The goal is to make a real change and it is already underway.

Crypto is infiltrating all strata of our society.

How to create a digital state currency that inspires confidence in the greatest number, less volatile, and which would avoid falling into the trap of surveillance?

The question is: why would we need a digital state currency when we have the possibility of creating citizen and stable virtual currencies?

At present, we could develop a cryptocurrency that would be managed transparently by citizens, officials and the government.

This option is not even discussed.

The question is not how to create a digital currency that inspires confidence, but how to create confidence in the state.

Finally, cryptocurrency does not only involve economic and technological issues, but also social and democratic ones.

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