On Sat, 19 Feb 1994, Pat Farrell wrote:
I've been following the digital money issues here for quite some time, and I do not understand this distinction at all. Sandy said essentially the same thing in different words, and that too was beyond me.
Except for tangible money (i.e. 99.99% pure gold coins) I don't see that any money is anything other than a mutially agreed upon way of moving "barter tokens" between folks. Sometime the government (or Fed) can define the true value of the barter tokens, and othertimes their attempts fail. When the attempt fail, the usual course is to have a "devaluation" that reflects market realities.
I don't see how digital money is fundamentally different than private bank notes that were common in the US in the last century. They are good if they are accepted, and useless if not.
If this is really a critical distinction, since I don't see it, I'd appreciate a more concrete explaination.
It may or may not be a critical distinction... Do you consider a check to be "money"? Or is it exchangable for money? Does a wire transfer count as money, or is it simply a transfer of funds from one account to another? I don't see CypherBucks as true money. It to me is a secure means of transferring cash from one account to another. If you see a chech as money, I am pretty sure you won't agree with me. A check in itself is almost useless until rendered to a bank. It is not legal tender. You can't use a third party check at the store. You can only deposit (transfer funds) or cash it (exchange for legal tender). CypherBucks will probably go the same way. If you issue me a transfer token, I won't be able to pass it off to Sandy since she won't be able to validate it's value, only the CypherBank will; so there will be no third party CypherBucks. This brings it a little farther from legal tender. Of course, this is just my $ 0.01 It's too early on a saturday to put in a full 2 cents! -ck