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A Cashless, High-Value, Anonymous Currency: How?
jfruh writes "The cashless future is one of those concepts that always seems to be just around the corner, but never quite gets here. There's been a lot of hype around Sweden going almost cashless, but most transactions there use easily traceable credit and debit cards. Bitcoin offers anonymity, but isn't backed by any government and has seen high-profile hacks and collapses in value. Could an experiment called MintChip brewing in Canada finally take us to cashless nirvana?"
Theft, yes. Bitcoin itself ever hacked, no.
Not being "backed" by any government is nothing less than the very first prerequisite of anonymity. Governments don't monopolize the business of currency and central planning (by force) for your benefit. They are in the business because it's absurdly profitable -- especially when you can print more currency out of thin air and use it to pay off your debt (something no private business could ever do without immediate financial punishment).
What can be done mathematically in an abstract environment is one thing, what can be done in the real world with competing interests and (rather importantly) physical implementations.. are often two very different things.
The main problem with anonymous currency is that is being pressed to be outlawed all around the world. The second problem, of course, is people.
If you don't check to see that the transfer has been confirmed, sure, but that's no different than putting a bill on the counter and then snatching it away. It's not a hack, and you can't do it to someone that doesn't allow you to.
Someone forgot to look at the work done by this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chaum
Real digital cash involves an issuing authority, which can be a bank or a government, but which neither knows who it has issued any specific token to nor when or where that token has been spent (well, strictly, it only requires this if it is to be both scalable and support offline payments). Real digital cash allows transactions to happen offline i.e. requiring no parties other than the two parties involved in the transaction. That is what Chaum and many other cryptographers spent lots of time developing.
Palm trees and 8
And that's precisely why it holds value.
John
MintChip differs from bitcoin in one very critical aspect. Bitcoin is generated naturally. Scarcity is built into the model. MintChip works just like the Dollar (post silver standard). It's arbitrarily created by a central authority who can inflate or deflate as they see fit. So, bitcoin is proof of nothing. MintChip is just like anyother currency, but without a printing press. Bitcoin is entirely different.