After the year of development, the project is gnu presented the release of the free system of electronic payments gnu taler 0.9 , which provides anonymity to customers, but retains the possibility of identifying sellers to ensure transparency of the provision of tax reporting. The system does not allow you to track information about where the user spends money, but provides funds to track receipt of funds (the sender remains anonymous), which solves the problems with the tax audit characteristic of Bitcoin. The code is written on Python and distributed under the licenses of AGPLV3 and LGPLV3.
GNU Taler does not create its own cryptocurrency, but works with existing currencies, including dollars, euros and bitcoins. Support for new currencies can be provided through the creation of a bank that acts as a financial guarantor. The GNU Taler business model is based on performing exchange operations – money from traditional payment systems such as Bitcoin, Mastercard, Sepa, Visa, Ach and Swift, are converted into anonymous electronic money in the same currency. The user can transfer electronic money to sellers, who can then change it back at the exchange point in real money presented by traditional payments systems.
All transactions in GNU Taler are protected using modern cryptographic algorithms that allow you to maintain reliability even when the private keys of customers, sellers and metabolic points are leaked. The format of the database provides the possibility of verification of all transactions committed and confirming their consistency. Confirmation of payment for sellers is cryptographic evidence of the transfer within the framework of the contract concluded with the client and cryptographically signed confirmation about the availability of funds at the exchange point. GNU Taler includes a set of basic components providing logic for the bank’s work, exchange points, trading platform, wallet and auditor.
The main changes :
- Added support for confidential mobile payments made in P2P (Peer-to-Peer) through Direct binding Buyer’s apps and Tailpine applications (POS, Point-OF-Sale).
- Added payment of payments from restriction by age (the seller can set a restriction on the minimum age, and the buyer is provided to the buyer the ability to confirm compliance with this requirement without disclosing confidential data).
- Improved diagram of the database of the metabolic point, which is optimized to increase performance and scalability.
- Python Bank was replaced by the instrumentation Libeufin Sandbox with the implementation of server components that ensure the work of banking protocols and emulates the simplest banking banking System for managing accounts and balances.
- Variant of a wallet based on Webextance technology, designed for browsers, adapted to support the third version of the Chrome manifest.