Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash

At  4:43 PM 8/19/94 -0700, Eric Hughes wrote:

>If there were already a fully identified digital money system,

Is there one?

>On the other hand, there is likely also a local maximum where the
>premium is fairly small.  In this case you get not only all the people
>above, but a large percentage of the people who are willing to pay
>just a little more for privacy.
>
>As to where these local maxima actually are, and which yields the
>larger profits, I have no idea.

It all boils down to Bedford Forrest's maxim "Get there first with the most
men."  (Sun Tsu said it first, but Forrest probably wouldn't have liked to
know that, I'm sure)

If in fact there is no method for making cash transactions on the internet,
particularly "off-line" transactions with no trusted third party in the
loop at transaction time, then digital cash is all we have.  Eric has
destroyed the point about the efficacy or need for off-line transactions
already, but to expand on his last sentence, there needs to be empirical
evidence to back up or refute his and my opposing claims.

>The costs associated with anonymous digital cash may well be less that
>for identified digital money systems.
[reasons elided]
>
>Digital cash, on the other hand, needs a redeemed note database, but
>this is one of its only unique costs.
         [snip]
>It is likely that digital cash is more efficient economically, since
>it unbundles a bunch of previously linked services and allows them to
>be purchased separately by those who actually need them.

Halleluja!

Eric, for the last three months, you have said that there was no way to
prove whether digital cash was more cost effective than other forms of e$,
and thus potential efficiency was useless as an economic argument for its
adoption.

Perry and have held that it must be, and you have just now given a bunch of
real good reasons.  Now we need to figure how to test all this out...


I love this place...

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

-----------------
Robert Hettinga  (rah@shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone
Shipwright Development Corporation     who eats too little and sees Heaven and
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Boston, MA 02331 USA                       snakes." -- Bertrand Russell
(617) 323-7923

>If there were already a fully identified digital money system,

   Is there one?

I don't think there is any digital money system at all, neither
anonymous nor fuly identified.

There certainly are digital funds transfer systems, almost all fully
identified.  These are not digital money systems, although they may be
precursors.

   Eric, for the last three months, you have said that there was no way to
   prove whether digital cash was more cost effective than other forms of e$,
   and thus potential efficiency was useless as an economic argument for its
   adoption.

I still agree that you cannot really _prove_ that it will be more
efficiently, at least not from armchair business planning.  Given a
few million for a good study though, I'm sure answers might be
forthcoming.

What is apparent, however, is that it is certainly reasonable to
examine the possibility that digital cash might be cheaper to
implement.

Eric

Eric Hughes says:
>    >If there were already a fully identified digital money system,
> 
>    Is there one?
> 
> I don't think there is any digital money system at all, neither
> anonymous nor fuly identified.
> 
> There certainly are digital funds transfer systems, almost all fully
> identified.  These are not digital money systems, although they may be
> precursors.

The U.S. banking system is largely a "digital money system" in the
sense that the bulk of the money in the system is represented in book
entry form in computer systems and has no other existance.

Perry

> There certainly are digital funds transfer systems, almost all fully
   > identified.  These are not digital money systems, although they may be
   > precursors.

   The U.S. banking system is largely a "digital money system" in the
   sense that the bulk of the money in the system is represented in book
   entry form in computer systems and has no other existance.

Well, just to pick nits, I'm referring to a retail-level, digital,
general-purpose, bidirectional transaction system.  That doesn't exist
yet.  (Credit cards aren't bidirectional.)

Certainly, though, the book entry money that is the world's high end
monetary accounting is all digitized at this point.

Eric