From: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 94 04:20:14 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Voice/Fax Checks
Message-ID: <199407211118.HAA20691@zork.tiac.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 10:52 PM 7/20/94 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote:

>"Don't bother.  Take out the check you were going to send me, read me the
>routing code and check number on the bottom.  Give me your name and address
>and the bank's name and address as they appear on the check, the amount you
>will pay and the date.  I'll collect that check electronically without you
>having to bother to send it."

This is exactly the problem we're having with identifying a market for
digital cash. There's no unique selling proposition besides privacy. There
are too many real good substitutes, like this one for checks. E-mail with
the above information in it can be encrypted and signed, and would be
secure enough to make a real good check in its own right. This is like my
favorite quote (in InforWorld) about Macs: "It seems that 85% of the market
will settle for 75% of a Macintosh."

By no means take this to mean that digital cash isn't going to make it.  I
figure all e$ now, including the encrypted check above, is kind of like
aviation was in the beginning.  It's really cool that that it works, we can
make some pretty good guesses as to its possible uses, but nobody's built
the "DC-3" which proves once and for all its commercial necessity.  I
expect that the only way to find out whether digital cash is gonna make it
on it's own is when someone risks a small pile and implements it.  Let the
devil take the hindmost, more guts than brains, and all that.  It looks
like maybe that's what Chaum and Co. is going to try to do, with this test
of theirs.  Has anyone out there been contacted about it yet?

Cheers,
Bob


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