Ah, now I see your question. For discussion, assume there exists a third party, let's call it a bank. This bank creates pieces of electronic currency to be used in micropayments and distributes them to users. In a transaction, the seller would receive piece(s) of this currency from the buyer and would deposit them into an account he maintains with the bank. Upon deposit, the bank verifies the authenticity of the currency and that it has not been previously used. The bank then increments the account of the seller appropriately and notifies the seller. The seller would then be issued new currency by the bank. These accounts may or may not have any connection to identities in the real world, depending on the wishes of the people who open them.
A user could open an account anonymously and start running a node to earn currency to use in further activities. As long as they do nothing else, no information about the user, other than the fact they're running a node, is revealed. Some entity or entities, which may or may not be the bank, would act as an interface between the physical currency and the virtual one. Perhaps they would charge a fee for that service or not. If someone thinks the fees charged are too high, they can start their own conversion service and charge more reasonable ones. If the currency converters act arrogantly, more responsible people could likewise start to compete with them on that basis. You are correct that anonymity would not be preserved in the conversion between the real and virtual currencies. But that conversion does not need to take place for every transaction and in fact should only take place rarely. But what if the bank acts irresponsibly? If there was only one bank, that would be a problem. But anyone could start a bank. It would only take a machine connected to the internet and some software. I believe that the software should be GPL'd and available to anyone. So there are many banks, each issueing their own currency. The authenticity of each bank's currency could be verified immediately and each bank would be willing to exchange their currency for another bank's and could do so immediately. The value of each bank's currency would be tied to it's reputation. If a bank floods the market with it's currency, that currency would lose value and the bank's reputation would be harmed. If a bank refused to exchange it's currency for other kinds, it's reputation would be harmed and it's currency would not be accepted. Conversely, if a bank is well behaved and responsible over a period of time, it's reputation would increase. A good reputation would be the only true asset a bank would posses and once established, a bank would want to continue behaving in a fashion that would preserve it. So, at every stage, participation is voluntary. No one would be forced to use micropayments. Barriers to entry would be low, so anyone could compete in the marketplace. Good behaviour would be rewarded by the marketplace and bad behaviour punished. All with no centralized authority or control. On Friday 05 July 2002 03:37 pm, Abel Daniel wrote: > So you suggest some kind of electronic money. In this case the currency > itself can be totally fictious. But how do you "interface" it with real > the world? For example what do you do if somebody sets up a rouge node > which sends out electronic money, but is not willing to pay real money? > (Like writing checks, but not honoring them, promising to pay but not > paying in the end) > and > I guess the real problem is that no matter what you do, electronic money > transmission, or micropayment, or whatever, is just transferring real > money. No matter what you do electronically, it all boils down to one > thing: somebody "inserts" money into the system and somebody "extracts" > it. In order to do that you have to indentify these two. So in this case > you would have to trust the third party to: > - really hand over the money to you > - not hand over money to somebody who is not autorized to get it > - keep you indentity secret and not abuse it (spam, etc.) > > The third party would have to identify you "in the real world" because > at the two ends of the transmission, real money will change hands. So > you have to trust this third party just like you trust your "real life" > bank. _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hawk.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech
