Re: ecash thoughts
At 05:53 PM 7/3/96 -0400, Simon Spero wrote:
2) If ecash is used to create a new currency- i.e. the value of a unit of the ecash is not tied to any single existing currency, what should the value of one currency unit be set at? (let's call it a Turing)
Low, maybe a tenth of an American cent. But probabilistic payment should be used to allow the minimum average payment to go way below this, perhaps to an unlimited extent. The reason is simple: The cost of providing net transactions, and electronic transactions in general, can be expected to drop exponentially, just like the cost of telecommunications and CPU power do. Any arbitrary limit to how low they can go will act somewhat akin to the minimum wage: It will deter development of any product or service whose perceived value is less than this arbitrary minimum. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Wed, 3 Jul 1996, jim bell wrote:
At 05:53 PM 7/3/96 -0400, Simon Spero wrote:
2) If ecash is used to create a new currency- i.e. the value of a unit of the ecash is not tied to any single existing currency, what should the value of one currency unit be set at? (let's call it a Turing)
Low, maybe a tenth of an American cent. But probabilistic payment should be used to allow the minimum average payment to go way below this, perhaps to an unlimited extent. The reason is simple: The cost of providing net transactions, and electronic transactions in general, can be expected to drop exponentially, just like the cost of telecommunications and CPU power do. Any arbitrary limit to how low they can go will act somewhat akin to the minimum wage: It will deter development of any product or service whose perceived value is less than this arbitrary minimum.
If the value of a Turing is one tenth of an American cent, then it would actually just be a pseudocurrency backed by U.S. dollars. The inflation of ecash would be the same as the inflation of U.S. money. However, I do agree that the value of one unit should be low. You use Moore's Law to state that the cost of electronic transactions drops exponentially. However, this is only true if the electronic transactions use the same amount of bandwidth. As chip processing speed and transmission bandwidth double, the cost of building the equipment also doubles. - -- Mark =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= markm@voicenet.com | finger -l for PGP key 0xe3bf2169 http://www.voicenet.com/~markm/ | d61734f2800486ae6f79bfeb70f95348 "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." --George Orwell, _1984_ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBMdxhVrZc+sv5siulAQEvXQP9EpchmkFK5dlxzwGP73oh02ATNzrVfl+N nB7BrpT/Ord5cUYk9vVFVdqZ4w3rW+/uV0QQaPE+GOeDH5bnDtX7nBGBQp72TpVl Bwy+b6cuHuPMjivMSqHfOcSLhXXDO3Km+35dxx77FNOWa4MI2rgDtUdqjXOocaiR puGEgEosYDI= =6UK5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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jim bell -
Mark M.