Stablecoins aren't exactly known to be privacy tools. Thus I interpreted this speech differently, that the ECB doesn't want the Euro to be replaced by USD stablecoins, or even worse, "basket"-type stablecoins like Libra was meant to be.
This is not meant to defend the ECB here, but it's two different problems imo. CBDC fear is a bit overrated (even if I don't like the concept), banks will always try to keep a portion of the digital transaction cake, so there will probably never be a "CBDC-only" system some people fear. Maybe in North Korea.

It depends who is in charge in the state. And who demands certain "values" from the state (e.g. focusing more on security and not on privacy). See my answer above to @pooya87 and this one to Alpha Marine.

The problem has much to do with fears, people feel unsafe in the digital world and thus are demanding "strong leaders" and "strong law and order policies". And politicians give them what they want.

But the call for privacy is also weakened by the current tendency to form groups and defend every idiocy the own gang says. I'm referring here e.g. to left-leaning hackers who defend privacy but have too high hopes the state could protect their privacy, and reject "anarchist" methods like Bitcoin because it's not compliant with the group's ideology. Thus there are relatively few people defending Bitcoin's privacy. This thread is also a call to these groups, if someone of them is reading here (wishful thinking imo ).

If Bitcoin privacy had a strong movement protecting it, like those movements who have prevented the public connection storage in European countries like Germany, I think the state would not be acting as aggressively as it does currently. Both due to big voter groups demanding privacy, and perhaps even to more knowledge about the subject.

I believe the problem lies deeper. See answers to @Lakai01 and @Alpha Marine some posts above.

I don't fully understand your logic here. So they need control to prevent someone, in their name, retailiates against a stronger enemy? If you want you can elaborate a bit ...

Also imo currently the control can't be that absolute, otherwise there would be no crime at all and also no international conflict. There are cities in China where at least regarding crime in the public space, total control is close to reality (e.g. Shenzhen). In most other countries, the control is quite deep (see NSA) but not absolute.

(for some reason my browser refuses to quote your post correctly)

Perhaps I expressed myself clumsily - what I want to say is that countries like the US, the UK or France have a great burden and responsibility on their shoulders - there is no doubt that their attack on Iraq was completely wrong and based on false information, that the invasion of Afghanistan was one of the biggest failures (and extremely expensive) - and that with these actions (and some others) they created a bunch of enemies who dream of only one thing - and that is to attack those same countries and cause as many more victim.

If you say "stronger enemy", what does that even mean? How is it possible that weaker enemies could have carried out such a sophisticated attack with passenger jets on the heart of the US? I can also ask you the following question - why doesn't something like that happen today, why have terrorist organizations become rare?

My conclusion is that there is perhaps not absolute, but almost absolute control of everything that is online or serves for communication (mobile networks), as well as regular financial flows of money.


Crime (of all kinds) simply must exist - because the saying "bread and games" may be hiding something else - and that is precisely crime as one of the pillars of the society in which we live.  Do you want a concrete example? Let's say my country has been in the EU for 10+ years and during that period the same party has been in power, and during the same period around 30 ministers were forced to leave their positions because they were found to have criminal activities.

At the same time, this same party is receiving praise from the EU leadership for its excellent work, and how could it not when the head of the EU, Queen Ursula, is secretly negotiating with companies on deals worth tens of billions of EU euros and is not accountable to anyone for it.


It's possible that it's because the post is long and has a lot of quotes - it happens to me too sometimes that I can't make a post the way I want. I think it's a forum thing, not a browser thing.