LIBERATE YOUR PAYMENT-SYSTEMS

Ever since that disasterous incident where a certain organization called "Collective-Shout" pressured multi-national Payment-Processors like Visa & MasterCard* to DE-BANK some NSFW games as well as other financial-nightmares like the "Youtube-Adpocalypse", which let's be a bit honest, brought about a series of escalations in censorship tactics; I had been thinking about doing some research into the topic of payment-processors, financial-institutions & banks engaging in this type of "financial violence/oppression" & boy-oh-boy, I found more dirt that might terrify you: These are just a few examples. Now I want you to put aside your personal political beliefs for a few momentsb> & analyze this phenomena from a NEUTRAL, LOGICAL, ETHICAL & PRAGMATIC perspective/lens. At the end of the day we all should be worried about the idea that in a CIVILIZED world a private or even public entity like your banks, financial-institutions, even your payment-processors [like Visa, Mastercard, paypal or stripe] & your own DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED governments can just transform into arbitters of truth & lies either via external pressure [like an organization that I mentioned in the beginning] or from internal decision-makers [like the 'board of directors'] & hence become a censor that cannot be held accountable in any real manner, ESPECIALLY combined with the insane amount of personal data-collection/farming. This undermines our basic human rights like 'Right to freedom of expression' as well as undermine democratic pluralism & obviously our democratic institutions by extension.

This barbaric act of censorship via de-banking sets a rather dangerous precedent in the future, where dissidents get their lives ruined beyond repair just for going against the status-quo, we all need money/'medium-of-exchange' to live, without it, it's a slow & agonizing death & I am not exaggerating when I call it EVIL.
So it is high time that we as CIVILIZED HUMANS truly addressed this dire issue to protect ourselves from any wannabe fascists that want to de-bank us for speaking out.
But first let's set the stage by getting to know about ECONOMIC-SECTORS:
  1. Public Sector:- Government-owned & it's aim is to provide services for the welfare of the public.
  2. Private Sector:- Owned by individuals/group-of-individuals & has a profit-motivated aim.
  3. Joint Sector:- Co-owned by government agencies & private firms; but the government holds a significant stake in it.
  4. Co-Operative Sector:- Worker-Owned & operated [or by Producers & Suppliers of raw materials]; they pool resources to run the "Co-Operative" & have a proportional stake in it's profits & resources.

LEVEL-1: CORE-BANKING SOFTWARES/SYSTEMS [aka CBS]

So why did I give you a super-short lecture on economics regarding "ECONOMIC-SECTORS"; well I wanted to point your attention to the Co-Operative Sector as there's no top-down hierarchy [As in it is a mostly horizontal-ish hierarchy] & the people working have more power & motivations to oppose corruption & sabotaging in my humble opinion.
Plus there are some Payment solutions that might act as a massive force-multiplier when combined with Co-Operatives. Some examples of let's say "tech Co-Operatives" are "Igalia" which develops the servo browser-engine & "Spinel" which is a co-operative consisting of Ruby & Rails developers.

So where should we start ? Oh we'll start with talking about 'Open-Source C.B.Ss', where CBS means 'Core Banking Softwares/Systems'. These are usually Cloud-ready software-bundles like; User-Databases, Accounting-tools, Loan-tracking, notification-systems, authentication-systems, APIs, Support-Ticketting & even plugins & so on...; which have everything a modern high-tech bank needs to operate on a digital frontier called the internet.
As an alternative to big-banks, you & your friends or community can create & operate a co-operative bank [combined with forming union-groups] which utilizes any of these Open-Source CBS bundles like:-
  1. Apace Fineract for backend & Mifos for frontend
  2. OpenCBS
  3. MyBanco
  4. FireFly
Now the ones I recommend are the 1st two since they are actively-maintained quite fairly as far as I know. But that does not mean that the rest of them cannot be revived & improved/upgraded.

LEVEL-2: GNU-TALER PAYMENT-SYSTEM

Now having a "Co-Operative bank" powered by a FLOSS/FOSS *Core-Banking-Software/System* is only 1 part of the battle, yes now you have a safe-ish repository for your FIAT-Currency/Money that's probably run by trusted member of your community who will have your back. But you still need to have a way to receive payments from your commercial/professional ventures as well. so we are talking about a "global-reach" kind of an issue here, which means now it is time to tackle the scourge known as payment-processors [I am talking about the PROPRIETARY VARIETY of Payment-Processors] via talking about GNU-Taler.

Now "GNU-Taler/Taler" is essentially a Libre/FLOSS/Free-Software alternative to the proprietary payment-processors like Visa, Mastercard, Paypal & even Stripe. As you already know; we cannot rely on just any payment-processors, it HAS to to be privacy-respecting & needs to have a De-Centralizable authority behind it [Via Forking the project & creating your own iteration of that payment-processor]. Hence why it specifically NEEDS TO BE FLOSS [Reminder; FLOSS means "Free/Libre & Open-Source Software"], so that your average folks who have programming-skills can contribute improvements & bug-fixes to the system & in dire circumstances even fork & then deploy it on our own if necessary.

This "fork-ability" is critical here; in cases the project gets compromized/sanctioned in 1 part of the world, we can still access the ecosystem via those "forks" that bypass the restrictions. For now at least GNU-Taler is just that Libre/Open-Source alternative that may save us. YES, my friends it is GNU alright. [Credit to Christian Grothoff & Florian Dold]
It's a libre/FLOSS payment-system that preserves user/payer anonymity due to it's privacy-respecting nature & at the same time upholds merchant-accountability [Via preventing merchants/payees from evading taxes & money-laundering] via making their transactions transparent. as well as maintaining security by addressing common frauds like phishing & chargeback-frauds & even if the digital wallet gets stolen somehow, then ONLY the money in that wallet will get stolen.

I'll am happy to inform you that GNU-Taler is currently being field-tested [kind of] in Switzerland [Even got support from NGI & the Swiss National Bank]. Hell, it has even been adopted in the form of integrations in: It's quite similar to India's '[UPI](https://www.npci.org.in/product/upi)' [*UPI = Unified Payment Interface*] which was developed by a Public-Sector company/PSU called 'NPCI' with the whole "scanning QR-Codes thingy" except UPI is proprietary & centrally-regulated with an iron-fist by the Indian government & it is also very mobile-centric.
The alternative called GNU-Taler is Open-Source & can be forked by ANYONE & developed/improved upon or utilized/deployed by anyone independently [You still have to comply with financial regulations, but at least it'll be a TRUE OPEN-ECOSYSTEM], has the capacity to be Cross-Platform [Like the potential to have desktop-apps] & additionally; it works on top of existing Fiat-currencies & their systems [Like Euro, Yen, Dollar, Rouble, Yuan, Rupees, Rand, Peso, Pound, Won etc...]; oh I forgot to mention that as of right now it can only engage in One-time payments only but hey hey, with further improvements/upgrades due to it's FLOSS/Open-Source nature we can probably implement a native 'recurrent-payment' functionality in the future.
Did I also mention that unlike most of the proprietary payment-systems GNU-Taler has a mobile-application in Fdroid ‽‽ In fact there are 2 GNU-Taler android-applications on Fdroid as of right now as I am writing this article: So if you are genuinely excited about GNU-Taler then please check it out, contribute to the project & spread the word about it.

LEVEL-3: CRYPTOCURRENCIES & THE BLOCKCHAIN-ECOSYSTEM

Now let's address some of the more EXOTIC options of a liberated payment-system which is 'CryptoCurrency'

Well it is no secret that nowadays cryptocurrencies has a negative reputation from all the scams & the constant mindless shilling from grifters & the misinformation campaigns by corporations & governments alike. But I would like you all to have an open mind & look at what the BlockChain technology offers, which is the technology that powers & built the cryptocurrency-ecosystem in a manner of writing/speaking.

Okay now remember; while we are protesting the de-banking & building alternatives, we are still de-banked & there's no income rolling into our wallets. Also what about in cases where governments try to stone-wall or de-fang your attempts at creating & deploying a liberated financial-system via unnecessary red-tape & or unethical persecution/prosecution ???

THIS is why we need a deterrent/"silver-bullet"; in other words, a type of financial-system that can be used/deployed by anyone, anywhere & at anytime immediately. Something that is truly de-centralized/distributed & anonymous/privacy-respecting & can bypass the sanctions COMPLETELY.
This is exactly what cryptocurrency can potentially provided that you have access to any computer-networks [I guess we could call it an "internet" connection]. A proper cryptocurrency should be:
  1. Libre/Open-Source/FOSS/FLOSS
  2. De-Centralized [Or distributed; depending on the blockchain]
  3. Powered by BlockChain [As in have a "Proof-Of-Work" or "Proof-Of-Stake" consensus-system]
  4. Must provide you with a "MINING-SOFTWARE"
  5. Must have proper documentation [AND have a community behind it]
The blockchain-technology is genuinely useful & can be used for more than just cryptocurrency; like in case of BlockChain-Platforms like Steemit or Dtube & protocols like IPFS, which makes censorship of content incredibly difficult to achieve.

Remember that with blockchain, you not only get what's essentially open-source money/currency but also an entire financial-system that is also open-source/FLOSS, peer-to-peer/de-centralized, trust-less & can be automated [via "smart-contracts"] to a degree as well.
But don't just use any old cryptocurrency, remember that cryptocurrency-scams are still a thing. Now the cryptocurrencies given below simply stood out to me as a personal preference, but reminder that there are faaaaaaar more than the ones I mentioned:
  1. Monero
  2. Z-cash [Another good privacy-respecting option for cryptocurrency]
  3. BitCoin
  4. LiteCoin
  5. Ethereum
  6. Cardano
Here; 'Monero/XMR' is the gold-standard in my humble opinion as it is designed to be privacy-respecting from the ground-up & hence emulates as a digital-cash [In the context of cryptocurrencies & not Fiat-currencies as that's what GNU-Taler does] of sorts. Also, surprisingly there's a platform that allows you to "super-chat in monero/XMR" called 'XMR-Chat', isn't this cool ‽ Well if it all fails in the end & I hope it [As in, the attempt to deploy liberated financial-systems] does not fail, but just in case the venture fails, we can at least rely on the good-ol "Bartering System". Speaking of which I was shocked to find some Open-Source options when I looked it up, so I'll list it here so you can take a look: Yeah, well WARNING: some of them may have shady websites or un-maintained, but hey, they can be revived. So there you go; as wonderful as ALL the options are, at end of the day the will to act is EVERYTHING. Between me & you, irrespective of our differences I hope we can agree that making sure that libre/open-source/FLOSS payment-systems ACTUALLY EXIST as an option is better than them not existing at all & the thought of getting de-banked for stating sane opinions & facts in an insane world is a terrifying thought to me & hopefully you.

So let's get cracking & liberate our money & our financial systems !!!!