Canadian Mint To Create Digital Currency

Oldcynic writes "The Canadian mint has allowed 500 developers to enter a contest to create a new digital currency. The currency would allow micro payments using electronic devices. From the article: 'Less than a week after the government announced the penny’s impending death, the Mint quietly unveiled its digital currency called MintChip. Still in the research and development phase, MintChip will ultimately let people pay each other directly using smartphones, USB sticks, computers, tablets and clouds. The digital currency will be anonymous and good for small transactions — just like cash, the Mint says. To make sure its technology meets the gold standard in a world where digital transactions are gaining steam, the Mint is holding a contest for software developers to create applications using the MintChip.'" It looks like the Canadian Mint might have a bit of Sweden envy.

Comments

Wiping out our savings

[cpu6502]

Digital currency just means the Central bank can wipe-out our savings more efficiently (by devaluing the dollar). You work and scrimp to save a million dollars for retirement. But by the time you're an old man, its purchasing power will be diminished to just 100,000 thanks to the actions of the rich bankers,

We're heading in the wrong direction. We should be looking for a STABLE currency that can not be devalued.

Re:Wiping out our savings

[vux984]

only an idiot would build their retirement in cash dollars. this is why as soon as you've got more than a few thousand bucks in cash savings you should invest them.

One of the many purposes of investjment is to preserve the value of wealth in an inflationary environment, where the devaluation of currency over time is assumed, and hedged against.

Re:Wiping out our savings

[Z34107]

Digital currency just means the Central bank can wipe-out our savings more efficiently (by devaluing the dollar).

I hate to break it to you, but "digital" has jack shit to do with whether or not a central bank can devalue the currency.

Hint: It can.

Re:Wiping out our savings

[Anonymous Coward]

Currency does not need to be devalued, devaluation is theft. Hoarding is a false argument made by people who confuse money with wealth. Balancing the flow of wealth (ie: money) is indeed very tricky, so tricky in fact that it cannot be planned by a central authority using fanciful economic models but should rather be left to free markets. So fuck off "independent" central banks with your fractional reserve bullshit, the power to create money belongs only to the people.

Re:Wiping out our savings

[Vaphell]

A properly run economy

Economy doesn't need to be run, it's not a car. It's like saying that ecosystems need to be run or the weather needs to be run or the water circulation needs to be run. It just happens because there are naturally existing forces that initiate actions.
Just look at the track record of human interventions in ecosystems to make it better. Aral Sea nearly gone, Australia is full of nasty foreign species that were to fix an existing problem, but caused greater one, Aswan Dam has its own share of problems. That's how good people are at controlling things they don't understand.

Thanks to decades of debt-heavy "optimization" geared to inflate the holy GDP metric, we have a global economy that is at the brink of collapse.

Re:Security Through Obscurity

[CastrTroy]

That's what I was thinking. How do you have digital currency that is anonymous? Makes no sense to me. Either there is a verifiable record of the transaction on some 3rd party machine to ensure that money was actually transferred from one account to another, which means it's not anonymous, or it is anonymous, but depends on some hard-to-break DRM going on inside the card. The problem is that there's just too much to be gained from breaking the DRM. If you break the DRM you can basically print money. This is the same problem that's existed on all non-centrally managed payment cards. From photocopier cards to transit systems. People figure out how to break the DRM and charge up their card as much as they want. When it's photocopies and transit, there's isn't much lost or gained in breaking the system. But with something that's actually equivalent with cash, there's room for a lot of fraud.

Re:A better name

[pnewhook]

ok, seriously. Where did the aboot thing come from cause no one here pronounces about like that.

Re:But can they do it right?

[1s44c]

copyright != counterfeiting. If I photocopy your $100 bill with a super-duper photocopier, did I rob you?

Actually yes, If you make a $100 bill and it enters general circulation the entire economy just inflated by $100. You robbed everyone who holds dollars.