Okay, as some have pointed out, I've been a little too flip in assuming that people's nyms will "vanish" if they get into real trouble. It's true that nyms like "Pr0duct Cypher", which represent the authorship claim to years of code and writing, are not going to be abandoned over a $10 transaction, and if P. Cypher were to put that nym on the line for a deal, I wouldn't hesitate to accept it. The problem arises because the means of building reputation are so utterly ill-defined. Having read P. Cypher's list contributions and software, and having a public key to check his/her/their signatures against, suffices in an individual case. But commerce - large, heavy, routine commerce between relative strangers, which is the fundamental strength of our markets, requires there to be some standard format or method of presenting reputation capital that can be checked. The only thing I can think of is a set of endorsements verifying deals done already. But that is exactly the information that most of you say you don't want disclosed. Escrow agents and reputation agents definitely help -- they can overcome a lot of difficulties involving who gets paid what and when. But now you've got a third party in your deal, charging vigorish when one of your main hopes was to get away from the tax man charging vigorish. Bear