How do you handle the loss of privacy caused by using only non-cryptocurrency digital payments? Any mitigation measures one can take, or is it an all-or nothing proposition to have everything you ever buy logged? Can you see what other citizens buy, or is this privilege reserved to a few bankers, tech companies and government institutions?

Government institutions (the tax man mostly) are trying their best to limit the flow of anonymous transactions. Withdrawing a relatively large amount of cash (>=$1500) requires you to sign a form stating your intended purpose with the cash. Depositing a large amount of cash (>$750) requires documentation on how you came by this cash.

Crypto is nowhere as anonymous as everybody appears to believe. Every single transaction is on the blockchain, and can be traced from acquisition to being spent. Considering that all European exchanges are now obliged to report their customer details to the authorities (under the KYC of AMLD-V EU directive), it becomes a relatively simple matter to trace your money to crypto transactions.

Fortunately, Europe isn’t hit as hard with the customer profiling as the US is, and the EU is rather intent on protecting privacy, so your data purchase history is available only to youths relevant parties.

In case of MobilePay, the service provider can of course see the details, but all my bank sees is a text I’ve input when sending money, or what the sender has input. It still gets reported to the tax authorities.