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Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1994-05-03 - Re: Virtual Cash

Header Data

From: Eli Brandt <ebrandt@jarthur.cs.hmc.edu>
To: cypherpunks list <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Message Hash: 17f51a6ef4d11e3012390a6e82da5f1bfa754e7a1f0fa5eb29563dad0e17f8d9
Message ID: <9405030611.AA02555@toad.com>
Reply To: <199405030501.BAA21247@duke.bwh.harvard.edu>
UTC Datetime: 1994-05-03 06:11:45 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 2 May 94 23:11:45 PDT

Raw message

From: Eli Brandt <ebrandt@jarthur.cs.hmc.edu>
Date: Mon, 2 May 94 23:11:45 PDT
To: cypherpunks list <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: Virtual Cash
In-Reply-To: <199405030501.BAA21247@duke.bwh.harvard.edu>
Message-ID: <9405030611.AA02555@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> 	Money has value because we agree it has value.  As long as
> noone is willing to give me a meal, a nights lodging, or 30 minutes
> CPU time for some number of tacky tokens, they will be just that;

The simple model: I offer to accept U.S. dollars and hand out tokens
at a one-for-one rate.  I also promise to redeem them at the same
rate.

Unfortunately, nobody would trust me, and they'd be smart not to.
I'm not an established financial institution.  Not only might I
abscond with the money, I don't have the financial reserves to
cover redemptions and still make money on a no-fees system.  And
I don't know the laws involved, so you might lose out when I get
hauled off to jail.

Poll: assuming you had a use for FedNote-backed 100%-reserve digicash, 
what service fee would you be willing to pay, and how much money
would you be willing to leave in the hands of some random individual?

   Eli   ebrandt@hmc.edu

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