At 10:08 AM +0000 on 3/11/00, Secret Squirrel wrote:
> Contrast this with one million dollars of anonymous digital cash.
> Such cash can be converted into bank deposits untraceably, and from
> there used to buy the real goods which the criminals want.
Certainly not at this stage of the game, or, frankly, at any stage until
there are assets other than cash, appreciating, financial, assets, in
internet bearer form.
Nice problem to have, as I'm fond of saying about such a thing, because it
means that book-entry transactions are that much more expensive than bearer
ones that the economics of financial operations itself has just shifted its
venue from meatspace to the net.
The minute you back up a bearer asset with a book-entry asset anonymity
will be lost at the conversion. Like Tim always has, I think that
book-entry tax havens are increasingly just wishful thinking, as the
transnationality of regulation accellerates, and that the only way to get
anonymity is with cryptography. In the meantime, we have no choice but to
render unto FinCEN, to mangle a little scripture. And that'll only change
when the exchange on the internet of financial assets cheaper, on a risk
adjusted basis, in internet bearer form than the alternative.
Cheers,
RAH
--
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
