At 09:22 AM 11/22/2001 -0800, you wrote:

-- On 21 Nov 2001, at 2:02, R. A. Hettinga wrote:

...

This is nothing new for long-time subscribers to this list. As Eric Hughes kept saying when I first got here in 1994, it is immediate and final settlement that attracts the capital and payment system markets to cryptographic protocols like Chaum's blind signatures, and not particularly anonymity.

People want immediate and final settlement when purchasing rights over assets. They do not want immediate and final settlement when purchasing services, or goods that must be physically delivered. Rather, for physical delivery, they want the final settlement to be as closely tied to actual delivery as possible --they want the arbitration provided by the credit card companies.

...

So, as has ever been the case, whoever builds a robust, instantly-settled, identity-independent, internet-ubiquitous transaction mechanism that actually works in production for assets people want to trade in large quantity is going to do quite well for themselves by saving the entire economy a whole lot of money

In such a system, the digital certificates must ultimately reflect control over assets, in other words they must be functionally equivalent to bearer bonds and, more importantly, bearer shares.

Needless to say, bearer shares are illegal almost everywhere.

Any system that does what you describe must be located in a haven, and will be met by great wrath.

Nah.. bearer shares are legal for any common Nevada corporation. steve