From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 95 22:11:56 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: taxonomies of 'real money' and e-cash
Message-ID: <ac839dbd1502100487f5@[205.199.118.202]>
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At 11:33 PM 9/18/95, P.J. Ponder wrote:

...
> 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

I wasn't saying they are all on the same footing, or are all separate and
compartmentalizable things. Clearly some of them are just slightly
different "flavors" of other things. I listed a bunch of them not as a
taxonomy or ontology, but as an illustration that there are many kinds of
financial dealings, many kinds of roles played.

That the real world has so many flavors of financial things could of course
be due to inertia and ignorance, partly. But there are also different
functionalities, and costs. Fitting the different needs, the different
roles of the players. I won't go on and on, as my last post on this I think
hit the main points, but consider how many flavors we have just of
"checks": the "ordinary" checks we write, counter checks, dual-endorser
checks, traveller's checks, and so on. (If you are arguing that only
"digital cash" is a real issue, and all other constructs are "small matters
of programming," then we disagree profoundly.)


>'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.

I don't get your point at all. I didn't claim they were all "money,"
whatver we may mean by _that_ loaded term, but that they are "things" with
important features. And even your example of a thing like a "stock
certificate" is not quite as simple as a thing like a "Maserati."

My belief is counter to yours: I believe many or even most of the financial
things and instruments we deal with today will be mapped into "digital
economy" versions, albeit with new wrinkles and perhaps new names.

(I could cite many examples of protocols that cannot be automated for use
by agents if the only carry-over is "digital cash." Voting of shares,
endorsements on instruments, various kinds of guarantees, reputations, and
so on.)

--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."