While Chaum is a brilliant cryptographer, he is an incompetent businessman He has demonstrated this in numerous ways. The latest being "Cash" where the bank skims off 4% to 10% every time. No one is going to use digicash under these kinds of terms and conditions.
Doesn't just about everyone do precisely this when they pay sales tax? Every time a buck arrives or departs a hand one pays a tax yet the system (you and I)continues accepting these terms albeit painfully.
Theoretically, when I pay sales tax I get something in return (better roads, nicer schools, improved NSA wiretaping, and other government services.) With digicash, you're paying for the use of the money itself. What sort of charges do Visa/Mastercard impose upon merchants? I thought it was 3%; if so, I would suspect that this is the level of "off-the-top" skim that the market will sustain, and DigiCash should probably use a similar rate. -- Mike Gebis gebis@ecn.purdue.edu Corporate Operating Systems Still Suck