Digital Cash with dynamic range
Ray Dillinger
bear at sonic.net
Mon Jan 1 12:32:53 PST 2001
Most of the protocols I'm finding for digital cash don't have much
in the way of dynamic range. Generally, there is a range of values
that they are designed for (rarely more than a factor of a thousand
or so from smallest to largest) and smaller payments become
impossible and larger payments become impractical.
The problem is particularly severe for offline protocols, where you
can't get the bank online to make change or issue arbitrary-valued
coins.
Does anyone know any happy exceptions to this rule, where payments
ranging from a millionth of a token up through several million
tokens could all be practical? (ie, dynamic range of the twelfth
or higher order?)
Anyway, the "practical in arbitrary amounts" assumption is pretty
fundamental to useful money. We achieve it through bank drafts,
checks, transfer orders, etc. But these instruments are not as
clear how to do in a digital world where anonymity is preserved.
In particular, I haven't found low-level details of how the "Mojo"
tokens in use by the new MojoNation stuff work. Are they just an
implementation of a well-documented protocol, or did they do something
new?
Bear
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