-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- L;>INTERNET:cypherpunks@toad.com;Digital Cash$$$$ (J. Michael Diehl)

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1. How does one start a digital cash economy?<<< A digital cash economy doesn't have to be separate from the regular economy.

1.) You mail cash/MO to First Digital Bank of Cyberspace (at an offshore maildrop) together with a public (unique if you like) key and anonymous email address (on Julf's remailer perhaps). 2.) The Bank opens an account denominated in the (traded) currency of your choice or a commodity (gold). There is no reason not to use existing monies to back digital cash. 3.) You request digital banknotes and the bank emails them to you as detailed in David Chaum's Scientific American article. 4.) You find someone to accept the digital cash. Initially it can be used for gambling and telecoms/storage fees, eventually buying digital goods (software, print, audio, video, VR) will be easy. Remember, within a few years 100 million homes in OECD countries will have 1.5 megabit lines into them. This is a huge market for digital entertainment. 5.) After a bit of development when the First Digital Bank of Cyberspace cuts a deal with a physical offshore bank, it can issue VISA debit cards and ATM cards in a Nome de Guerre. This is already done for large depositors, the nets make it possible to do it for all. You can then access your account from any streetcorner in the OECD. Remember money market funds are pseudo banks these days with VISA cards and check writing and all. 6.) If you want to close your account, and you can't find any way to spend your money as digital cash, you can have funds wired to a regular bank account you maintain in a Nome de Guerre, have it wired via Western Union with a code phrase because you've 'lost' your ID (for small amounts), have it wired to an out-of- country bank in your truename and go pick it up in person, arrange a gold purchase from a dealer somewhere and have the funds sent to him by wire or draft and take physical delivery of the gold. (There are many other techniques known to privacy experts). Eventually there will be plenty of moneychangers on the nets happy to take your digital cash. Most money is already digital. The digital cash technology just gives us a way to make easy financial transfers over public networks. If there is a demand for economic transactions over the nets, the money will be supplied. ****************************************************************************** * DUNCAN FRISSELL Attorney at Law, Writer, and Privacy * * CIS 76630,3577 Consultant since the Nixon * * Internet 76630.3577@compuserve.com Administration * * or frissell@panix.com * * Easylink 62853962 * * Attmail !dfrissell * * TLX: 402231 FRISSELL NYK * * * * * Privacy Checkup still only $29.95. Buy today before price * * * * controls force me to raise my prices. * * * * * "If Mohammed A. Salameh had seen me in January, he'd be * * vacationing in Tunisia today." * * * ******************************************************************************