This isn't news.
It does highlight a very important fact though.
A fair amount of advocates of 'free' sofware are very
dangerous, statist pieces of shit, like stallman and the rest
of hist cult.
> <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/06/gnu_cryptocurrency_aims_at_the_mainstream_economy_not_the_black_market/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook>
>
> The Register
>
>
>
> GNU cryptocurrency aims at 'the mainstream economy not the black
> market'
>
>
> GNU and an outfit called “Inria” have released Alpha code – version
> 0.0.0 to be precise – of an anonymous-but-taxable electronic payments
> system they say is “a currency for the mainstream economy, and not
> the black market.”
>
> “Taler”, as the effort is dubbed, looks to be an attempt to build on
> the concepts behind Bitcoin. So while Taler lets you use encrypted
> “coins” as a means of exchange, it is explicitly not a new currency.
> Instead, it “... uses an electronic exchange holding financial
> reserves in existing currencies.”
>
> “This means that Taler is not a new currency with the inherent
> currency fluctuation risks, but instead the cryptographic coins
> correspond to existing currencies, such as US Dollars, Euros or even
> BitCoins.”
>
> The technology is also designed to be open enough that governments
> can peer inside, levy “sales, value-added or income taxes”.
>
> As a GNU project, the code is of course freely-available.
>
> For now, the effort is in its very early stages. GNU even warns, in
> the announcement of the project's debut, that “There is no auditor,
> and hence components do not properly support auditors either. As a
> result, a dishonest exchange could embezzle funds.” There's also no
> real-world integration at present, “so only toy currencies are
> available for now.”
>
> If you're interested regardless of those foibles, the 0.0.0 code does
> include “key components providing logic for running a bank, exchange,
> merchant and wallet.” That code is described as follows:
>
> • Exchange implements the full Taler protocol, but does not
> integrate with traditional banking systems (only with Taler's own
> "bank"). • Wallet can withdraw and spend coins, but does not yet
> handle refreshing, refunding, synchronizing, or export of
> cryptographic proofs. Some error handling may be insufficient. The
> wallet was only tested with Chrome/Chromium. • Merchant backend can
> generate contracts and handle payments, but does not yet offer full
> back-office support for tracking payments received. Frontend examples
> are available in Python and PHP. • The bank can manage accounts,
> allows the wallet to withdraw funds and can receive payments from the
> exchange. Inria and GNU hope to have more advanced versions of Taler
> to share by year's end.
>
> When they do, it may well be game on in the cryptocurrency space:
> Taler's already used fighting words with its “mainstream, not black
> market” talk. Bitcoin's many admirers may take offence at that kind
> of language and point to strong adoption. Sceptics can point to
> security woes among Bitcoin exchanges, governance woes and the
> cryptocurrency's volatility as evidence that different approaches to
> electronic currencies probably won't hurt their evolution. ®
