Making Money in Digital Money

[Tim May]

On Saturday, April 26, 2003, at 09:27  PM, James A. Donald wrote:

>     --
> On 25 Apr 2003 at 22:56, Tim May wrote:
>> I think it may just not be possible for some bright
>> programmer to develop a solid digital money (henceforth, DM)
>> system and deploy it while still making money, avoiding some
>> kind of prosecution or lawsuit (civil lawsuits for many
>> different reasons).
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> * Real DM will likely be introduced in a guerilla fashion,
>> much as Pr0duct Cypher anonymously released Magic Money a
>> decade ago.
>
> The mint cannot be anonymous.   Needs reputation, and sizable
> wealth. Mint probably employs programmer, or is programmer.

Any given mint only needs the belief by its customers that it will 
honor (redeem) its tokens.

Such a mint can, by demonstration, be as small as a corner store 
offering gift certificates.

Naturally, the blinded nature of tokens means that customers can "ping" 
such mints as often as they like. (There is the "pack up, leave town, 
and burn customers" scam, as there always is with a bank or mint which 
has not yet redeemed all of its obligations. The best fix for this is 
to distribute monies at many such mints. It is unlikely, though 
remotely possible, that all of them or even most of them will abscond 
at the same time. Note that reputation per se does not stop this scam 
from happening even with meatspace banks. It is rare, however, as most 
banks deduce that getting a fraction of a continuing stream of business 
is more advantageous than absconding.)

> Child porn and bestiality are, like MP3s, a micropayment
> market.  My hard drive keeps getting usenet child porn on it
> even though I try to prevent it.  I download what I think is a
> Hellsing cartoon, and guess what?   Among the many unviewed
> videos and images on my hard drive, there is probably enough
> child porn to put me away for fifty consecutive life sentences.
> My email spam is full of bestiality, even though I have
> numerous filtering rules designed to delete it.  Surprisingly,
> I do not think I have seen any snuff spam -- which does not
> mean I am not getting it, it may be filtered by my anti porn
> spam rules.

Nonsense. What you are receiving for free is either tame stuff or is 
just a "free sample," for marketing purposes. Look at the reports on 
monies spent on actual busted child porn rings: these consumers are 
spending real money, not getting their stuff for free as spam.

--Tim May