No it's not. GNU Taler doesn't use a blockchain, as a blockchain cannot implement digital cash: in a blockchain, transactions are necessarily centralized — on a distributed ledger, but still account-based —, so they are effectively equivalent to wire transfer, i.e., just accounting entries: they cannot take place between two offline parties like you can do with actual cash. Also, blockchain-based digital "money" (quotes because there is no such thing, "cryptocurrencies" are purely speculative securities and that's it) need to be at the same time the currency, the long-term storage, and the transaction system.
On the contrary, GNU Taler is only a transaction system, and uses advanced cryptography and infrastructure that allow it to be bearer-based, i.e., actually decentralized transactions between two offline parties can take place. It can actually do digital cash, with buyers privacy, and all.
That said, I'm not saying we need such a technology. Only that it's clearly not cryptobro bullshit.
I guess they would. But my take on it is that the very title of the Bitcoin whitepaper contains two lies.
> "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System"
1. It's not cash as so many properties of cash are not met. It is technically a simple writing game, just like wire transfer between accounts at a same bank.
2. It is not p2p. The underlying protocol that allows to maintain the distributed ledger is; but transactions, since they're account-based and only a writing game (contrary to actual cash transactions which are bearer-based), are centralized on that distributed p2p-maintained ledger. So the "cash system" (which is not that either) is not p2p.
On the contrary, GNU Taler is only a transaction system, and uses advanced cryptography and infrastructure that allow it to be bearer-based, i.e., actually decentralized transactions between two offline parties can take place. It can actually do digital cash, with buyers privacy, and all.
That said, I'm not saying we need such a technology. Only that it's clearly not cryptobro bullshit.