Digital Cash$$$$

[Bear Giles]

Phil Karn writes:
>
>Recall that the US has money-laundering laws that require you to file a
>form every time you move $10,000 or more in or out of the country. If the
>First Digital Bank of Cyberspace is offshore, it could come under these
>laws, at least with respect to priming your account with real money.
>
>It's an interesting question whether they could then get you for sending
>more than $10,000 of digital cash across the border without filing the
>form. It's even more interesting if you encrypt all these cross-border
>transactions...

This could tie a lawyer up in fits, because even if you sent digital
cash across the border, you could still produce a _spendable_ copy
in the originating country!  In fact, you could have the same 'bill'
residing on media in a dozen countries!

You couldn't legally spend more than one copy of the digital cash,
of course, but digital cash (unlike hard cash) can be located in
several places -- and probably would be if you're talking about a
substantial amount of money.

>Another wonderful set of laws we can credit to the "war on drugs".

Many countries restrict or monitor the flow of currency across their 
border; this isn't simply a result of the WoD.  However, the WoD was
the main reason publicly acknowledged.


Bear Giles