At 10:14 AM -0400 7/31/97, Vincent Cate wrote:
Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk> said: But you are right that it is an asset continually dropping in value, so it is an odd thing to back a currency with. Would only want to keep enough money in it to do what you currently wanted to do, not as a long term investment.
I could imaging just gradually increasing it so that $0.25 for 1 megabyte today became $0.25 for 1.1 megabytes in 3 months, or something like that.
Not very different from how one might handle a gold-denominated and backed ecash coin. Real gold must be stored in a repository which charges a storage and handling fee. This can integrated with the coin value by applying a negative interest rate to the coin based on the epoch in which the coin is issued. So coins are redeemed at a lower than initial value (assuming no change in the gold value figured in whatever unit it is being exchanged). --Steve