From: "P.J. Ponder" <ponder@wane-leon-mail.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 95 21:32:59 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: taxonomies of 'real money' and e-cash
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9509161138.G23340-0100000@wane3.scri.fsu.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9509190028.C29056-0100000@wane3.scri.fsu.edu>
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On the 15th of September, Tim May wrote -

. . .

> "Digital money" currently has only a few ways of dealing with transfers of
> value in transactions. A lot of the problems come, in my view, from this
> relatively spartan set of "primitives."
> 
> Where are the cryptographic equivalents of:
> 
> - money orders
> 
> - promissary notes
> 
> - receipts
> 
> - warrants
> 
> - lockboxes
> 
> - bearer bonds
> 
> - options
> 
> - time deposits
> 
> - coupons
> 
> - escrow
> 
> - IOUs
> 
> - zero coupon bonds
> 
> - checks
> 
> ...and so on. The terms in any good dictionary of financial terms (such as
> the "MIT Dictionary of Modern Economics," ed. by David Pearce, 1992). (Many
> of these things are built up out of more basic things, with mix-ins from
> other classses, or with modified methods.)
> 
> A look at any book on money and finance shows a rich "microworld" of
> "things" and "procedures" (classes and methods attached to classes). The
> classes have subclasses, and the methods have various behaviors and
> "expectations" attached (more than just simple class behavior, more of an
> AI or agent flavor, in my view).
> 

. . . .

> 
> --Tim May
> 
> ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
> Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
> tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
> Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
> Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
> "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."
> 
 Maybe I'm missing the larger point, but isn't it accurate that in the 
digital world, one protocol or procedure may take the place of perhaps 
several of the 'real-world' procedures or protocols?  An effective 
mechanism of signing with non-repudiation that was recognized as binding 
on the signer would permit 'checks', 'promissory notes', 'IOUs', and 
'warrants'.  Some of the other species listed in your post aren't really 
money, anyway.  They are things you can buy with money, like stock 
certificates or Maseratis.  One could conceivably buy convertible 
debentures with e-cash, the same as one could buy them with 'real money', 
but it doesn't follow that there should be some one-to-one mapping of real 
money objects and classes onto electronic analogues.  Once again, i've 
probably missed the forest, but a couple of the trees distracted me.

--PJ Ponder