Hello rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga) and stevenw@iglou.com (Steven Weller) and cypherpunks@toad.com [certificates have their own inherent worth etc]
In such a system, where does credit come in? If I have a certificate that is worth X, then does the recipient know that it's from my "credit card"? How do I obtain credit, and in what form does it exist?
There's no reason for the recipient to know it's from your credit card. You simply obtain cash from your bank as a loan and then give it to the recipient. If you want to provide the convenience of CC (ie avoid having to go to the ATM first), you could allow wallets to communicate with the bank via the merchant's equipment, in effect building an ATM into every point-of-sale terminal. wallet via merchant to bank: withdraw X from account Y bank via merchant to wallet: here is X in e-cash wallet to merchant: here is X in e-cash If you do not wish the bank to know which merchant it was, you could send it via an anonymizing service or two.
Furthermore, how do we assess the value of real physical things in a system like this?
Well, same as in any other system: "how much are you willing to give me for this?" Jiri -- If you want an answer, please mail to <jirib@cs.monash.edu.au>. On sweeney, I may delete without reading! PGP 463A14D5 (but it's at home so it'll take a day or two)