1. Which would you prefer to have as a payment choice: Cash, digital Euro or both?
I would rather transact using cash than a highly transparent and regulated digital currency. I would also want people to have the freedom to choose which they prefer to accept as a payment. So, cash or both.
2. If cashless society is the future, how do you think this will affect our personal lives?
Finance is a universal language and has been used for years by governments to maintain control by regulating money flow, inflation rate, availability of loans and so on. A completely digital currency would mean full transparency and as it would be centralized, the issuing body would have full control of holder's funds.
In the recent kucion hack, issuers of centralized tokens that were stolen locked some of the looted funds, so the hackers could not make away with it. This would be similar to the sort of regulations that would be present in a digital fiat currency and could be used on anyone. In summary it would result in;
• Lack of privacy
• Lack of control.
3. How could privacy still remain a right of ours if, at one point, digital Euro becomes the only option we have?
Imo, privacy would be waved off. I would assume there would be higher demand for decentralized currencies like bitcoin or other less regulated assets like Gold and silver to keep transactions off the chain.
4. While digital EUR surely does allow authorities to better fight criminal activity, it does also allow them to actively monitor your financial life. As decentralized privacy-focused currencies are never going to be a bank's choice, we will likely have to sacrifice one of the two. Which would you sacrifice, if you had the choice?
More efficient criminal investigations at the cost of financial freedom? I would definitely pick financial freedom, scams and frauds have gone on in the banking sector, and I don't think any agency should have full control over the flow of money, especially as a utopian society does (and would) not exist.
5. How do you think Bitcoin will be affected? Will there be more demand for it? Will there be harsh restrictions?
A line from the original article caught my eye regarding how it relates to Bitcoin;
"
The Eurosystem task force, bringing together experts from the ECB and 19 national central banks of the euro area, identified possible scenarios that would require the issuance of a digital euro. These scenarios include an increased demand for electronic payments in the euro area that would require a European risk-free digital means of payment, a significant decline in the use of cash as a means of payment in the euro area, the launch of global private means of payment that might raise regulatory concerns and pose risks for financial stability and consumer protection, and a broad take-up of CBDCs issued by foreign central banks."
Bitcoin would roughly fall under such global means of payment which spurred the idea of a digital Euro, meaning it could be considered a threat.
I believe there would be more demand for Bitcoin by users who wish to maintain their privacy. I also think this would come at a cost as government agencies try to maintain control through more stringent regulatory laws.
