Bitcoin Forum

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Most EU nations are pro AML (anti money laundering) regulation. Which promotes digital currency, CBDC and cashless society, all formats which they claim helps prevent money laundering.

The new italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni however appears to be one of the few bucking the trend. She is proposing regulations and laws which allow businesses to refuse credit cards and demand cash payments for sums up to €60. An increase from the current limit of €30.

With bank runs and related negative trends on the rise. "Cash is king" sounds like a great policy to me. Certainly this is the wave of the future. Only bitcoin beats cash. Gold, silver and precious metals are too clunky, unsupported and cumbersome to efficiently conduct transactions. The same can be said of a barter system. Cash is one of the best options we have atm.

Some countries are just bad at digitalizing, and you often need cash there to get by. Italy has been heavily cash-based for a while. I've found the data from 2019  (https://sifted.eu/articles/n26-killing-italy-cash-economy/)that around 86% of payments were made in cash there, so it's not a drastic policy change, but it still feels weird to reinforce what is clearly a problem that should be solved. Using cash is less hygienic, riskier (getting a person's cash is easier than using a stolen plastic card), more prone to financial crimes (cash can be counterfeit and real cash can be easily used for illegal purposes because no ID is required), less convenient (you have to count and carry it, cashiers have to count what to give you in return). I am not a fan of cash, I think going digital is the way.

With the downward trend in cash limits in Europe, this is to be welcomed. In some countries the limit is as low as €1,000. Some say this encourages the underground economy, and indeed it does, but it also respects the privacy of people who do not defraud and do not want to be monitored.


I agree, but I would point out that for low amounts it is the best. If you want to move 1 million pounds or euros, the best option is bitcoin, but for day-to-day payments with privacy there is nothing better than cash, because with cash you pay everywhere (with some rare exceptions) while the options for day-to-day payments with bitcoin are very limited.

Giorgia Meloni is one of a kind. Who knows how much EURO they have created thus the reason for its devaluation. And She must have seen it coming that banks are going to run in the next few months along with digital currencies so if one has many on the bank will lose them all. Accepting cash alone and having cash on hand makes sense. Though they may still be devalued, bank notes will not disappear in an instant.

I had no idea European countries had limits of cash! It sounds totalitarian, in my opinion.
Ms.Meloni has proven herself to be already a controversial figure within the European community, mostly because things she has said in the past, I did not expect her to go against the plans of the developed economies on implementing digital cash or CBDCs.

I can only speculate she wants to reduce profits taken by the banks in Italy, for some reason, credit is not free.

It seems she did not go to economics lecture in her class.  :D
Where at one corner of the globe there are nations who are changing their denominations so that they can dig out the black money that is hidden everywhere in the nation and also trying more digital approach: here is PM from most developed countries who thinks that cash is actually the way to avoid money laundering. When it's digital, it has digital footprints, when its physical it has nothing. There are millions of ways that people have learnt over the period of time using cash money.
May be something is not right with their thinking.

I am a big "digital cash" supporter when it comes to Crypto currencies, but I agree with Giorgia Meloni  for a different reason. The global debt crisis are built on "credit card" use and how easy it is to swipe a card.

People seem to spend less, when they have cash in their pockets.... because they physically handle the money and they can also see how their wallet are drained, when they use it.

I still use "cash" a lot.. and only use online payments when I pay for some of my expenses, where I have to stand in a queue to make the payments. (It is just more convenient to use debit orders or to make EFTs)  :D

I personally use cash a lot because I am used to it. In addition, digital currency is really inconvenient in daily life, and many places do not accept it. In addition, in my life and financial investment, the feeling of using today is the same as that of digital currency. I feel more clear when using cash and know where the money is going. But friends who do international trade around me like to use digital currency for transactions, because it can save a lot of time and taxes.

You've got this wrong, she didn't say a thing about money laundering, her position was that raising the limit slightly won't affect money laundering that much since it will still be low enough and still comparable to other EU countries. She focused on the other aspect, that you're forced to use a credit card or a debit card for payments over 60E even at a chain store, which is a bit stupid, to be honest, I'm in the EU and I can still pay my groceries in cash far higher in value with cash at any store. Now switch from groceries to a night out and you're out of luck since it's highly improbable to come under those 60 euros for a dinner for two persons, so basically, everyone would be forced to have a card.
It's one thing to encourage, but it's completely a different thing to apply unseasonable limits, the limits in Italy were the lowest in all of EU (https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cash-payment-limitations.html) and even increasing them they would not be the highest at all, Germany has no limit and is just planning to introduce a 10k one, double the one Meloni is aiming for.


It's not about digitalization, is about the resistance of their own citizen, Italy scores one of the lowest even looking at the number of transactions per card, Germans also prefer cash to cards despite being able to pay everywhere with a card, this is no longer a thing of infrastructure but mentality.

Every person in the world should be against money laundering, because it serves no legitimate purpose and is detrimental to society because it is abused by the greedy few. We're not talking about people who want to shield where they spend their money, we're talking about criminals who use this device to clean money - stolen either through fraud, people who want to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, money raised from nefarious sales, or many other nasty things. Being able to trace illegal money swapping helps track down the crime and who benefited from it - the transparency of the blockchain actually assists in anti-money laundering by it's very nature as long as any exit points are properly regulated.

It's a way of dealing inflation and as well as the control of other huge economy countries that have been moving the value of their local cash. That's why promoting their own cash for purchase would help them have more demand in cash and will make the value of it higher than using other payments even it's digital.

But to say that electronic money isn't legal currency, too many countries that have ties with e-money which is pegged on their own local currencies. Maybe that's what she's missing that their own digital currency is also be pegged to their own currency and of the same value.

as for why some countries think paper cash is king.

when you give a bank your bank notes. the bank sends it to the mint to be destroyed. for free.. the commercial bank/payment service bank gets to edit a digital balance on its accounts. however banks have to have a ~5% holding of fresh bank notes (stuffed into ATM's and bank cashier desks) to honour any withdrawals
which means they have to BUY bank fresh crisp notes from the mint to cover the increase of account balance at a now, just <5% of balance amount
EG someone deposits $1000 in bank notes ($20 x50 paper get burned)
bank credits digital account with $1000 and then has to buy $50($5x $10) of bank notes for $50.
which is where the government treasury gets $49 because it only cost them $1 to print those fresh 5 pieces of paper bank notes

yep for every X bank notes you give a bank the government got 4.9% into treasury
(many years ago gov' gave back to give as savings account interest))
(now treasury keeps to offset gov debt repayments of QE to banks)

so the more people that use paper cash the more the gov can get 4.9% of that deposit to then use to pay off any QE debt the gov has

in a pure digital system local gov's dont get that income stream to offset debt

yes banks decades ago invented visa/mastercard and cheques. to avoid having to buy as much cash to have on hand to honour withdrawals which is why the 'on hand' cash a bank had to hold went down from higher percentage(above10% decades ago) to 5% and lower recently

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having looked at some CBDC (including chinas) without the tin foil hat of some people. CBDC are not the devil you think it is..
however there are many pitfuls

paper cash is in the pocket. it doesnt have "battery low" problems of your cell phone. nor hacker fault from downloading other apps to phone.

paper has advantages over CDBC

as for the KYC, yes most including china have a 3 tiered wallet. low mid hi tiers low tier is for personal spending amounts these wallets have no kyx and mid tier (business/mid income/middleclass) have basic kyc and the top(corporate/rich) has full kyc

CDBC has more ability for commercial banks/payment services that service the customers(note not the central bank) to monitor the mid top tier and report suspicious/tax evading to authorities. meaning it can strengthen the tax revenues from the mid/top tier group. while the small spender group dont get hassled much unless they upgrade to mid/top


however back to the pitfalls
digital only works if you have cell battery power and cell signal. or within a brick&mortar store to pay them using tap&pay/qur code face to face.

(though these wallets do offer all 3 options of payment from wallet(wireless, qr,tap))

losing your phone or dropping it means immediate access is lost. but you can use recovery seed on new device to regain access.

i think that italians are almost the same as germans who still adhere to traditional payments,, because most germans also still use cash compared to digital payments for various reasons, the main one being security and privacy .. i also on several occasions still prefer to use cash compared to digital payments because i don't use my device all the time and also digital payments in my country are still not good because there are still many cases of hacking .. i'm not against digital payments, it's just that in my country it's still not good ..

It is not about digitalisation, its about people's mentality and what they are used to. Japan is one of the leading countries when it comes to use of cash, and its hard to say that they prefer to use cash due lack infrastructure. On the other hand, leading countries when it comes to sue of cards are Scandinavian countries, whose people are known for their blind obedience and trust in government.


And I gladly accept all those cons, just so government doesn't know every single thing I buy. The same way I accepts risk of dealing with Bitcoin and being my own bank. 

Discouraging the use of cards and encouraging the use of cash doesn't favour the economy in the long run. Money in banks and other financial institution are constantly rotated. Meaning, they don't just sit there in the owners account or something, they are constantly invested to make more money. If more people start using cash, then you're only creating more room for leakages because not all of this cash will find it's way to the economy's financial institution and if this continues for a long period of time, the financial institution might not have enough money to invest. And one way these financial institutions invest is by giving loans to individuals and businesses.

So when these businesses don't get the required funding they need from financial institutions it affects the economy because they can't expand and be involves in more investments. This single policy if not well regulated can be a serious problem for an economy in years to come.

as an Italian citizen ;D I can assure you @OP that this is not a reform to "fight" the banks but to facilitate other "solutions".

above all, it has not yet been approved, and there is a large and daily journalistic campaign to discourage such a reform.

Here the last from today ;)
https://genova.repubblica.it/cronaca/2022/12/06/news/caso_salis_le_scuse_dei_tassisti_da_noi_si_paga_col_bancomat-377647891/

the new generations practically always pay by card, in recent years there has been a sharp increase in this aspect with the Draghi government.

government does not see your "every single item i buy" by default as you spend it.. this is true for fiat today and most CBDC in future. including chinas CBDC
(i keep highlighting china as it seems meany tin-foilers use china as the extreme"

you and others  have to realise that senators and ministers are not sitting at their computer snooping

you have to separate the layers and see who does what. so you can point your debates at the correct people

1 gov
2 regulators
3 payment systems(banks)
4 retailers
5 consumers

when you make a payment with a debit card your data goes 543
if 3 sees something suspicious. it goes to 2
if at 2 they investigate and it is seen as criminally worthy of a official investigation involving the courts then it goes to 1(the court system not the government senator/ministers)
1(courts) give a order order to 2 where 2 can then ask for more info from 3 about you. and 3 can ask the 4 for their retail receipts of  your purchase.
only then does 2&1 get to see "every single transaction"

most of my concerns are at the level 3&4

where by if you sign up to a certain bank account you can be in a user agreement that allows 3 to get info about all purchases or sell to them info they already have about you with 4

because in both instances. the solution is to be careful about who your relationship with 3 is and what info you allow them to have

oh and as for level 2..(regulators) they are not politicians.. they are bankers and ex bankers put into manager roles to manage 3(banks). yep 2 is closer to 3 rather than 1

Unfortunately seems like I need a card to read that article about cards   ;D Damn paywall.


Wouldn't that be more the cause of covid restrictions than the government measures?
This is the data for PoS transactions per card for the last 5 years ending in 2021 (https://sdw.ecb.europa.eu/reports.do?node=1000005713), seems like Italy is just going with the trend that is happening in every country that had low card usage

I'm curious if merchants would actually use their right to demand cash only from their customers? I think a business that tries to do that would quickly realize that they are losing customers, because many people already barely carry any banknotes and don't want to withdraw money from ATMs, since it costs them additional fees. Plus they need to count the change from every payment to make sure that the cashier didn't make a mistake.

Any new trend almost always has both a positive and a negative side. The transition to digital money also has pros and cons. If we talk about money, then probably you should not focus on criminals. A person should always have the right to choose whether to use cash or a bank card with non-cash money. When using non-cash money, the criminal is more easily tracked by the government. At the same time, quite conscientious people are very easily tracked for the purpose of further manipulation. This should not be forgotten and this should be a priority. And to track the criminal, this is the business of law enforcement agencies. They have special powers for this and a certain mechanism of influence. In addition, small household transactions are still much more convenient to make in cash.

Crazy women that wants to throw Italy into stone age. Today she does not like cards, one of most convenient payment options, and votes for cash, tomorrow she will say that linen bags with gold is more suitable, then we will go back to direct bargain such as item vs item.

I bet she withdraws her salary as soon as she receives it. I bet she sleeps on a pillow filled with cash. I bet she will fail to explain why there is so much cash in her house if police runs a search. I bet she will drop this cash idea after a year, if she starts to do shopping and little purchases herself. She'll surely complain how heavy her bag or pockets are when she'll start receiving coins as change. I bet she went crazy when she has found out what NFC is :D

Who said anything about sending Italy to the stone age?
Nobody is banning any card payments it just raises the limits on how much you Can pay with cash, and Italy had lower limits than a ton of countries in the EU.

Italy had a limit of 2000 that Meloni wanted to be raised to 5000, Germany, Denmark, Austria, and Ireland have no limit, and what's more interesting, there is no limit in Sweden either, which is the most cashless country in the world right now.
https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/shopping-internet/cash-payment-limitations.html

This is simply astonishing, we're here on bitcointalk where we're supposed to talk about freedom of your personal finances and you're here criticizing somebody that wants to allow you more options for payment and no limits. How does this work?

It's less hygienic to use public transport, metros, to eat at street, etc. Okay, cash has some disadvantages but it has one privilege and that's your control on your money. When you pay with cards, the time of transaction, the amount of money, the type of spending, every info is collected by banks and then this data is used for personalized marketing offers which I am against and cash makes you more anonymous and also gives you more control on your money. Banks and government can freeze your bank account anytime but no one can freeze your safely stored cash.
So, cashless society is not a good idea indeed, we need cash.

Every country in the world still uses a cash and it was still prioritized due to how easy and fast it is easy to use. Call it a stone age but I think people aren't really bothered about that. The world is still evolving in other fields but even in the monetary or financial field, we still have digital payment methods and then there are the popular cryptocurrencies.

Never heard that to have so much cash in our house is a crime. For what is the use of vaults in the market? There are so many people flexin' their bag of cash in social media. I think it only becomes a crime if the cash isn't truly yours or you only laundered it and the police is looking at you.

I would take all her declarations with quite a pinch of salt. She has made her "political character" this strong by pretty much pissing against EU's wind. I don't see this a solid call for action, I see it more a (meaningless) "political declaration". I would like to see anything actually done from the things she is telling, but I doubt that anything would happen (or change).

Her actions do have a good justification: card payments are expensive and the merchant has to pay those fees, which, for small amounts and small shops (with no big contracts with Visa/Mc) can become significant. Of course, Bitcoin fixes this.
On the other hand if card payments can be this easily avoided by merchants, they can this easily underreport their sales and their income and not pay the correct amount of taxes.
So this can easily make de state lose big money, which I'm sure some will tell her about.


I think that the total price also matters. Iirc here if one wants to pay for a flat (50-80k EUR), paying 10k EUR in cash is just fine, but if one wants to pay cash 10k EUR of the price of a car (10-20k) it's not allowed.
And your point is also interesting: the northern countries have no issues in correctly declaring everything for tax purposes. Moving towards south.. this is changing  ;)


I would not say I criticize her. I am just telling that what he's saying may not work out or may not even (ever) get implemented.

Agree. Credit card is intended to bring convenience, which it has, but it also creates problems for people to overspend and take loans. Cash is tangible and every time we make payments by cash, we can feel the real existence of money and think about the wise use of it. In my country, people rarely use cash nowadays and I feel sorry about this. Electronic or credit card payments are too quick and convenient so people have forgotten the concept of budgeting, which is pretty bad in my opinion. I believe the balance between cash and electronic payments has lost and we should consider this seriously.

Simple, use a debit card!
Again the same interesting thing, on one side we preach about being the bank on the other side we think people are not able to manage their finance correctly, so which is it?


I don't know how things are there but I assume the 10k is the advance payment for that apartment while the car is a full payment?
If it's like this, of course, it would be allowed since in the first case it's a standalone transaction, the other is splitting the payment and no company will ever want to deal with the accounting headaches, just as you said I would do the same refuse the payment and send you with your cash to your bank, deposit all that there and make a single wire payment!


Yeah, but it doesn't make complete sense either, because if you're in a country with more fraud and crime and tax evasion you would want to pay through a legal channel, so in case you have problems with what you have bought you have proof you've paid the guy that amount. So, from a consumer point of view, it would make more sense for southern customers to be using bank payments for their own safety.

It doesn't matter, the point was that 10k is 20% or less of the total in the first case, while in the second case it may be even the full price. And then in the second case, indeed, they send you to the bank  :D


Yep, that's what I also said: this can cause the (Italian) state lose big bucks due to underreporting for taxes, hence it cannot work on long term, hence it's just political.
I'm so sick and tired of politicians (here too) promising nice things that they cannot fulfill on the long run...

One of the reasons most countries adopted the use of cards is due to security concerns often met with persons who move with cash. Robberies and theft and more debt can cripple a societies economy quicker than one can imagine.
A country like Nigeria and some others are veering strictly into the cashless economy zone because the government believe it would help curb laundering and other financial crimes. This has not fully been grasped by the masses and as such cash remains king, mostly now when bank transfers and USSD codes and major ATM machines lack cash or clearly isn't functioning.

Meloni probably doesn't share your ideals :D

"The only legal currency in Italy and Europe is the paper notes issued by the European Central Bank."
The way I see it, in her eyes bitcoin must be electronic money, along with stable coins and CBDCs. She thinks all of it is illegal, although we could use more clarification.

I don't like this debate over legal vs illegal. One day she starts telling us that electronic payments that are legal around the world are illegal, the next she'll come up with something else that you cannot do that is allowed in all other countries. The US politicians also like to call things Illegal all the time, especially when it comes to gun laws. Large magazine, or having a forward grip can be illegal depending on a state. Like that has something to do with lethality, or gun violence...