Digital Euro: Frequently Asked Questions Revisited

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the European Central Bank's digital euro FAQ, highlighting privacy, security, legal, economic, and procedural concerns, and questioning the feasibility and societal benefits of the proposed digital currency.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the ECB's digital euro design, revealing significant issues and gaps that challenge its privacy, security, and societal utility.

Findings

Central monitoring threatens privacy more than existing methods.

Offline anonymity is compromised by hardware security risks.

Legal liabilities and economic incentives remain unclear.

Abstract

The European Central Bank (ECB) is working on the "digital euro", an envisioned retail central bank digital currency for the Euro area. In this article, we take a closer look at the "digital euro FAQ", which provides answers to 26 frequently asked questions about the digital euro, and other published documents by the ECB on the topic. We question the provided answers based on our analysis of the current design in terms of privacy, technical feasibility, risks, costs and utility. In particular, we discuss the following key findings: (KF1) Central monitoring of all online digital euro transactions by the ECB threatens privacy even more than contemporary digital payment methods with segregated account databases. (KF2) The ECB's envisioned concept of a secure offline version of the digital euro offering full anonymity is in strong conflict with the actual history of hardware security breaches and mathematical evidence against it. (KF3) The legal and financial liabilities for the various parties involved remain unclear. (KF4) The design lacks well-specified economic incentives for operators as well as a discussion of its economic impact on merchants. (KF5) The ECB fails to identify tangible benefits the digital euro would create for society, in particular given that the online component of the proposed infrastructure mainly duplicates existing payment systems. (KF6) The design process has been exclusionary, with critical decisions being set in stone before public consultations. Alternative and open design ideas have not even been discussed by the ECB.