At 03:39 PM 11/12/2002 +0200, you wrote:
On Tue, 12 Nov 2002, Nomen Nescio wrote: > According to this link, > http://www.infoanarchy.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2002/11/11/4183/2039, > a new form of digital cash called "yodels" is being offered anonymously: > [...] > Supposedly, then, this is cash which can be transferred anonymously via > IIP or Freenet. Leaving aside the question of trusting an anonymous bank > (trust takes time), the sticking point for ecash is how to transfer > between yodels and other currencies. Without transferability, what > gives yodels their value?I believe that the Yodel bank does not have its own currency, but uses DMT Rands. DMT Rands are alleged to be backed by a basket of gold plus a few fiat currencies issued by nation states. See http://www.orlingrabbe.com/rand.htm for information about the currency, and http://www.orlingrabbe.com/dmt_guide.htm for information about the DMT system and its companions ALTA and LESE.
Correct they are a bearer share issuer, like the Digicash licensees before them. They claim to hold value denominated in some units of account (in their case DMT) as their asset backing. The challenge for Yodel will come in convincing potential users that: DMTs have sustainable value, that Yodel is really fully backed by DMTs, that Yodel's operators can be trusted not to abscond with the value exchanged for Yodels or refuse to exchange them for DMTs at some future time. All while reamining anonymous. A pretty tall order I should think.
At least initially, many Yodel users may want only to use them mainly as a mixmaster between DMT accounts.
steve
