-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May):
You want to elaborate on this contention?
If Alice transfers Digicash-type money to Bob, this is because Alice either bought the DC-money someplace, or already had it, or otherwise arranged with a bank to make the transaction. Maybe the bank "loaned" her money she
Mistaken terminology, mea culpa. The scheme I was thinking of is actually called Private Currency. Someone mistakenly labelled the writeup Digicash and I cut and pasted without thinking. I do know the difference when my brain is on. s/Digicash/Private Currency. Apologies to Digicash. I'll explain Private Currency and why it's good and bad. In Private Currency you don't "buy the [money] someplace". You mint it when paying. Alice and Bob check each other's public debt and if neither is scared off by the other's high debt, they mint a debt for Alice and money for Bob. They publish a record of the transaction, which is how they knew each other's public debt in the first step. So in theory the amount of currency in existance is exactly 0. In practice I wouldn't trust anyone for a debt that I didn't trust directly for that amount. I believe the scheme would stall. I conceived TrustBucks as an alternative that would retain the decentralization but work.
No protocols. No anonymity. No protection against double-spending.
Looks promising. Keep us informed.
Fine. I doubt my mechanisms will be optimal but here you go. Restraint on double-spending: Each participant publishes a list of the ID and value all outstanding TrustBucks of their own variety. Value of the notes can be obscured so it can only be verified by someone who has seen the note itself. What if some participant doesn't publish a complete list? Well, who are they robbing? People who directly trusted them for that amount and now won't ever again. Anonymity: Each participant identifies their currency by a randomly chosen ID-number instead of name and publishes their ID/value under that number. However, it's pretty pointless, since the chain of trust has a hard time extending beyond people who directly know each other anyways. A better objection would have been that it's hard to identify a chain of mutually trusting links between two strangers who want to make a transaction. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQCVAwUBMgPoDJi7GCxryNrZAQHeEgQAmHsJithWMhmRv4y3IjnCBFKAgmZLCQ+i NVYGDBVJ19iwAOTTwqHgcYMGEYdKBLUaBMRAczJDfGRbsB6WbFLKyiESHT8gpV7R 6CVesb7XpRaVDBylgTvoE/NNXfNrLrTfWOeVWtivMSVkDRKJC6BbONR1J5juhQjv A9s1wa/uwSw= =hsSY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
An interesting idea. It reminds me of a barter system, with the similar problem of trying to put together a complex trade which is mutually acceptable. I wonder whether it could be automated if people posted their holdings and what they would accept. Then software could go into this database and try to put together a set of trades that will let someone make a purchase. However it would seem to be very harmful to privacy to have to post all this information. There are some "lightweight payment" schemes out there which have the property that people only accept cash that is "for them". Sometimes there is a broker involved who actually issues the cash on behalf of the merchant (the merchant trusts the broker to do this) so that customers need only go to a smaller number of brokers. Then these systems can be based on heavier payment systems like digicash or credit cards which people use to open accounts with the brokers. I do like the decentralization idea, but these lightweight schemes have some of the same advantages. Hal
At 19:11 -0500 8/3/96, TrustBuckFella wrote:
I'll explain Private Currency and why it's good and bad. In Private Currency you don't "buy the [money] someplace". You mint it when paying.
IOW Electronic IOUs/Markers.
Restraint on double-spending: Each participant publishes a list of the ID and value all outstanding TrustBucks of their own variety. Value of the notes can be obscured so it can only be verified by someone who has seen the note itself.
What if some participant doesn't publish a complete list? Well, who are they robbing? People who directly trusted them for that amount and now won't ever again.
If the value is obscured there is still no verification of how much they have outstanding. So long as all of the TrustBucks are listed (with the amounts listed correctly but obscured), there is no way to verify that the claimed total is accurate unless you monitor their list before the swap and after it and there is only one new TrustBuck listed (with the correct amount added to the outstanding total). Listing phony $0 notes on the list and removing them later (and dropping the claimed outstanding balance) would be possible. With this method, anyone who I give my note to will see the correct amount in THOSE notes as well as seeing the outstanding balance go up the correct amount but that amount can be manipulated (as I stated) due to there being no complete disclosure of the amounts.
participants (3)
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Hal -
Robert A. Rosenberg -
TrustBuckFella