Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
Bitcoin is not a pyramid scheme, and doesnt have to have the collapse and late joiner losers. If bitcoin does not lose favor - ie the user base grows and then maintains size of user base in the long term, then no one loses. I think in the current phase the deflation (currency increasing in value) helps increase interest and number of users. Say that in the next phase bitcoin stops rapid expansion and reaches some stable number of users, the deflationary period stops, and the remaining users use it for transactions only (not speculation). I dont see the losers in that scenario. Adam However. Unless the laws of financial conservation have been repealed by the design, those who follow have to invest a lot and come out with less... ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 6:50 AM, John Levine jo...@iecc.com wrote: PS: For anyone who wants a crypto currency backed by gold, that's functionally equivalent to a gold ETF, of which there are several, such as ticker symbols IAU, GLD, GTU, SGOL, and AGOL. They do what they do perfectly adequately, but they are in no sense currency. Bubble sceptics can trade put options on them. Too bad there's no options on bitcoins. There already are options on bitcoins. #bitcoin-otc [1] nominally supports them in its order book, though I see little use so far [2]. Apparently someone wrote a put for 100BTC at a strike price of $0.75/BTC with a 1.50BTC premium two months ago, maturing 31 May 2011 [3]; the option did in fact sell but I have no idea whether it was exercised. Bitcoin calls have been around on the forum since at least January [4], complete with risk reversal strategies ([5] is a textbook example of a collar though not a zero-premium one). [1] http://www.bitcoin-otc.com [2] http://bitcoin-otc.com/vieworderbook.php?notes=option [3] http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/4585101363/first-bitcoin-put-option-contract [4] http://forum.bitcoin.org/?topic=2986.0 [5] http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=2986.msg41580#msg41580 Cheers, --mlp ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
On 2011-06-13 2:50 PM, John Levine wrote: But that really has nothing to do with the crypto part. You can have crypto out the wazoo, and it's worth nothing unless there's an issuer in meatspace who will accept your crypto coins, cancel them, and hand you the agreed amount of money. But clearly, bitcoins are worth something. Maybe that is only a bubble, but then federal reserve dollars are also only a bubble. ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
On 13/06/11 10:31, James A. Donald wrote: The difference was Fannie, Freddie, and the CRA. This is entirely off topic. Please drop it. -- __ \/ o\ Paul Crowley, p...@ciphergoth.org /\__/ http://www.ciphergoth.org/ ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
Nicholas Bohm write: Now I find I can exchange a little over five bitcoins for a £50 Amazon gift certificate that Amazon seems happy to credit to my account. I see the example of an institution (organization, company, entity, ...) willing to happily credit the current value of *whatever currency* with *concrete products (goods)* or *concrete services* is the best example how and why *that currency* can become a trade tool for exchanging the goods as well as services. Your example is about two actors: Amazon and BitCoin, acting within small amounts of goods, services and issued currency. But there is another example with two other actors that are playing the currency spiral game of trust with HUGE, HUGE amounts: I am talking about China and the US Federal Reserve System. The amounts are in trillions of dollars, issued by Federal Reserves, and are happily (oh, maybe lately not that happily) accepted by China. Now, instead of Amazon, if we start to see similar Chinese entities (but not necessarily just Chinese, maybe some of the BRIC countries) that will be happy to credit the BitCoins with concrete products and services, then BitCoin as a trade tool for exchanging goods and services will probably survive in the next period. Or, seeing the latest Chinese-made crypto products like the latest ZUC portfolio of crypto primitives for the new 4G standard, instead of BitCoin, I expect to see a BitYuan. Regards, Danilo! ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Nothing to do with digital cash in the news...
On 2011-06-13 3:33 PM, John Levine wrote: Until very late in the bubble, Fanny and Freddy bought only conventional prime fixed rate loans, so it was roaring along without their help In 1992, Fanny and Freddy got tasked with affordable housing for the poor, and immediately dropped their standards. It was predicted at the time that this would lead to disaster. Fannie and Freddy started buying subprime loans in 1997, a further major drop in their standards. Was it roaring along in 1997? , and the CRA has been around since 1977, The CRA was turned from a minor irritation to Frankenstein's monster in 1992, which is when no hablo english cat eating wetbacks started buying expensive houses. In 2000 The National Community Reinvestment Coalition boasted about the early 1990s change in the CRA from toothless to lucrative: “Lenders and community organizations have negotiated $1.09 trillion in CRA dollars from 1992 to 2000. In contrast, $8.8 billion was negotiated from 1977 through 1991.” And guess what. One trillion was about the amount of money pissed away. ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
[cryptography] Is BitCoin a triple entry system?
On 13/06/11 12:56 PM, James A. Donald wrote: On 2011-06-12 8:57 AM, Ian G wrote: I wrote a paper about John Levine's observation of low knowledge, way back in 2000, called Financial Cryptography in 7 Layers. The sort of unstated thesis of this paper was that in order to understand this area you had to become very multi-discipline, you had to understand up to 7 general areas. And that made it very hard, because most of the digital cash startups lacked some of the disciplines. One of the layers you mention is accounting. Yes, so back to crypto, or at least financial cryptography. The accounting layer in a money system implemented in financial cryptography is responsible for reliably [1] holding and reporting the numbers for every transaction and producing an overall balance sheet of an issue. It is in this that BitCoin may have its greatest impact -- it may have shown the first successful widescale test of triple entry [2]. Triple entry is a simple idea, albeit revolutionary to accounting. A triple entry transaction is a 3 party one, in which Alice pays Bob and Ivan intermediates. Each holds the transaction, making for triple copies. To make a transaction, Alice signs over a payment instruction to Bob with her public-key-based signature [3]. Ivan the issuer then packages the payment request into a receipt, and that receipt becomes the transaction. This transaction is digitally signed by multiple parties, including at least one independent party [4]. It then becomes a powerful evidence of the transaction [5]. The final receipt *is the entry*. Then, the *collection of signed receipts* becomes the accounts, in accounting terms. Which collection replaces ones system of double entry bookkeeping, because the single digitally signed receipt is a better evidence than the two entries that make up the transaction, and the collection of signed receipts is a better record than the entire chart of accounts [6]. A slight diversion to classical bookkeeping, as replacing double entry bookkeeping is a revolutionary idea. Double entry has been the bedrock of corporate accounting for around 700 years, since documentation by a Venetian Friar named Luca Pacioli. The reason is important, very important, and may resonate with cryptographers, so let's digress to there. Double entry achieves the remarkable trick of separating out mishaps from frauds. The problem with single entry (what people do when making lists of numbers and adding them up) is that the person can leave off a number, and no-one is the wiser [7]. We can't show the person as either a bad bookkeeper or as a fraudulent bookkeeper. This achilles heel of primitive accounting meant that the bookkeeping limited the business to the size with which it could maintain honest bookkeepers. Where, honest bookkeepers equals family members. All others, typically, stole the boss's money. (Family members did too, but at least for the good of the family.) So until the 1300s and 1400s, most all businesses were either crown-owned, in which case the monarch lopped off the head of any doubtful bookkeeper, *or* were family businesses. The widespread adoption of double-entry through the Italian trading ports led to the growth of business beyond the limits of family. Double entry therefore was the keystone to the enterprise, it was what created the explosion of trading power of the city states in now-Italy [8]. Back to triple entry. The digitally signed receipt dominates the two entries of double entry because it is exportable, independently verifiable, and far easier for computers to work with. Double entry requires a single site to verify presence and preserve resiliance, the signed receipt does not. There is only one area where a signed receipt falls short of complete evidence and that is when a digital piece of evidence can be lost. For this reason, all three of Alice, Bob and Ivan keep hold of a copy. All three combined have the incentive to preserve it; the three will police each other. Back to BitCoin. BitCoin achieves the issuer part by creating a distributed and published database over clients that conspire to record the transactions reliably. The idea of publishing the repository to make it honest was initially explored in Todd Boyle's netledger design. We each independently converged on the concept of triple entry. I believe that is because it is the optimal way to make digital value work on the net; even when Nakomoto set such hard requirements as no centralised issuer, he still seems to have ended up at the same point: Alice, Bob and something I'll call Ivan-Borg holding single, replicated copies of the cryptographically sealed transaction. With that foundation, we can trade. Recall that in 2005 November, it became widely known that toxic assets were toxic. In 2005, the SEC looked at my triple entry implementation, and From late in 2005 to late in 2007, it
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
On 13/06/11 5:54 PM, Adam Back wrote: Bitcoin is not a pyramid scheme, and doesnt have to have the collapse and late joiner losers. If bitcoin does not lose favor - ie the user base grows and then maintains size of user base in the long term, then no one loses. Um, Adam, that's the very definition of a pyramid scheme :) No-one need lose as long as the size of the user base grows, long term! So everyone is incentivised to bring in new victims^H^H^H^H^H^H users :P That's why they're illegal, typically. I think in the current phase the deflation (currency increasing in value) helps increase interest and number of users. Um, yeah, whatever. Look, whatever you do, don't tell anyone of your friends or family to invest in it. Say that in the next phase bitcoin stops rapid expansion and reaches some stable number of users, the deflationary period stops, and the remaining users use it for transactions only (not speculation). I dont see the losers in that scenario. No, but the scenario is incomplete: Those speculating on an increase in value will realise it has reached stability. So they'll sell. Which will cause a reduction in value. Which will cause a run, as those that didn't understand the mechanics of a pyramid scheme get their rude lesson. However. Unless the laws of financial conservation have been repealed by the design, those who follow have to invest a lot and come out with less... iang ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
Bitcoin does not have to end with the pyramid scheme outcome - where it stalls and all those still holding any lose - so long as there remain people willing to exchange goods for bitcoin after the dust has settled. Anyway my point is even if the deployment phase is a wild ride, with some winners and some late losers who bought in above the final stable value, so long as a stable value results at the end, I dont see that as a big problem. Its not like we havent had bubbles and instability in various phases of any other forms of money or assets. If you take out the speculation, currently with people minting coins until they get to 21 million coins that would be inflation (limited inflation due to the mining cost); but also that more people are joining is deflationary (less coins per person). Then there is supply and demand - supply from minting (so long as the sell price is above minting cost), supply from people cashing out, and demand from people buying in. Cashing out and buying in maybe for trading or speculation. Once the 21 million coins are created bitcoin would remain deflationary during the next phase as until the user base grows to saturation. Once bitcoin grows to saturation, the remaining deflation would be limited by the underlying population and economic growth. That might be workable rate of deflation. Adam On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:55:38PM +1000, Ian G wrote: On 13/06/11 5:54 PM, Adam Back wrote: Bitcoin is not a pyramid scheme, and doesnt have to have the collapse and late joiner losers. If bitcoin does not lose favor - ie the user base grows and then maintains size of user base in the long term, then no one loses. Um, Adam, that's the very definition of a pyramid scheme :) No-one need lose as long as the size of the user base grows, long term! So everyone is incentivised to bring in new victims^H^H^H^H^H^H users :P That's why they're illegal, typically. I think in the current phase the deflation (currency increasing in value) helps increase interest and number of users. Um, yeah, whatever. Look, whatever you do, don't tell anyone of your friends or family to invest in it. Say that in the next phase bitcoin stops rapid expansion and reaches some stable number of users, the deflationary period stops, and the remaining users use it for transactions only (not speculation). I dont see the losers in that scenario. No, but the scenario is incomplete: Those speculating on an increase in value will realise it has reached stability. So they'll sell. Which will cause a reduction in value. Which will cause a run, as those that didn't understand the mechanics of a pyramid scheme get their rude lesson. However. Unless the laws of financial conservation have been repealed by the design, those who follow have to invest a lot and come out with less... iang ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 10:50 AM, Nathan Loofbourrow njl...@gmail.com wrote: The good old market played a role here too. There are lots of investors whose risk profile dictates that they should be in safe investments, e.g. pension funds and old people. With the interest rates held on the floor, and Greenspan and Bernanke sitting on their chest, those safe investors started to buy up mortgages, because mortgages were big dumb investments and everyone paid their mortgage. You just proved the point: the market was distorted, with private actors acting _within_ the distorted market parameters. Thus people who needed to make low-risk investments did make what _seemed_ like low-risk investments (after all, real estate had been a low-risk investment for decades in the U.S.), but actually were not just high-risk, but bound to fail. You can blame the derivative sinners (pun not intended) all you like, but there's an original sin here. Everyone else was either fooled into sinning, peer-pressured into it, or outright forced, and though there surely were some who understood what was happening and sought to profit from it, you can hardly blame them either -- we all do something of the sort (if you see inflation coming and manage your money accordingly, are you ripping off all those who can't or don't know to do anything about inflation? and if so, are you a terrible person for it?). After a while you run out of big dumb mortgages, and we did. So the pressure was on to create more of them. Once everyone has a mortgage, or maybe two, you start lending to folks with a risk profile that wasn't so hot anymore. The whole tranching process masked the fact that this was happening because you could still issue AAA bonds out of these and everyone bought in. tl;dr: everybody gets to wear a hat that says dummy, whether private, public or individual. The whole tranching thing was almost brilliant, and would have worked out fine (securitized mortgages from the 80s seem to have done fine, no?) if there had been no bubble (but in a bubble the securitization helped it along), and if all the issues in tracking the underlying loans (and thus pricing the securities) had been worked out correctly. ObCrypto: sorry, got nothing. Yeah, well, we need a sub-list for OT discussions. At Sun we used to have lists with sub-lists named the same + a -extra suffix, where people who wanted to participate in these sorts of long, flame war-ish, OT discussions could. Nico -- ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
On 2011-06-13 11:55 PM, Ian G wrote: Um, Adam, that's the very definition of a pyramid scheme :) No-one need lose as long as the size of the user base grows, long term! If bitcoin stabilizes, no one loses. If a pyramid scheme stabilizes, last to invest loses. ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
I was at ground zero of the crisis: Sunnyvale California. And every person I saw buying a seven hundred thousand dollar house was a cat eating no hablo english wetback with no regular job. On 2011-06-14 1:29 AM, Nico Williams wrote: First, there were plenty of middle class (and better off) people who used their ever-increasing home values as an ATM card. I checked foreclosures by suburb last time I had this argument: Back then, in East Palo alto (Black and hispanic) ninety nine forclosures. In Palo Alto west of the freeway, (white upper middle class) one foreclosure. Similarly for Cupertino (white and asian) and Gilroy (overwhelmingly hispanic) Therefore, middle class did not irresponsibly use their ever rising home values as an ATM card Or if they did, they paid up, rather than being foreclosed upon - unless you count as middle class those hispanics with no regular job who were buying upper middle class housing. Second, we don't need to use derogatory terms here. There's a difference between being polite and being PC, If someone mugged you, you were mugged by a non asian minority, probably black, and if someone failed to pay a toxic mortgage in the bay area, he is a non asian minority, probably hispanic. The street crime problem is a race problem, and the financial crisis in America is a race problem. People who bought overpriced houses no money down in the Bay area were overwhelming non asian minority, and in the case of hispanics, conformed distinctively to stereotype. It is probable that they had no idea of the lies that were written on the loan application, which they could seldom read, so one can reasonably argue that the literate and frequently white loan officers were to blame, and the non white illiterates signing the papers were innocent ignorant dupes. I suppose they often were. But if innocent, also ignorant - thus stereotypical. The guy who mugs you is usually a stereotypical black, and the guy who bought an expensive house no money down at the peak of the bubble and never made a payment is usually a stereotypical hispanic. Those crooked loan officers were frequently white, and those crooked bankers were all white. But the guys who borrowed the money and never made payment are not white, and are for the most part Hispanic, and for the most part, stereotypical Hispanic. ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
On 2011-06-14 1:50 AM, Nathan Loofbourrow wrote: After a while you run out of big dumb mortgages, and we did. So the pressure was on to create more of them. Once everyone has a mortgage, or maybe two, you start lending to folks with a risk profile that wasn't so hot anymore. This happened in commercial real estate, which also got bubbled, and also got falling credit standards - yet no crisis in commercial real estate. Developers went bust, and financiers forclosed, sold the properties for markedly less than loan value. And that was that. No crisis, no drama, no bailouts. The difference was that with mortgages to individuals, (usually black or no hablo English individuals) the bank issued liar loans, or like Beverly Hills bank, got rated Substantially non compliant with the CRA ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 9:22 PM, James A. Donald jam...@echeque.com wrote: I was at ground zero of the crisis: Sunnyvale California. And every person I saw buying a seven hundred thousand dollar house was a cat eating no hablo english wetback with no regular job. On 2011-06-14 1:29 AM, Nico Williams wrote: First, there were plenty of middle class (and better off) people who used their ever-increasing home values as an ATM card. I checked foreclosures by suburb last time I had this argument: Back then, in East Palo alto (Black and hispanic) ninety nine forclosures. In Palo Alto west of the freeway, (white upper middle class) one foreclosure. Similarly for Cupertino (white and asian) and Gilroy (overwhelmingly hispanic) Therefore, middle class did not irresponsibly use their ever rising home values as an ATM card Or if they did, they paid up, rather than being foreclosed upon - unless you count as middle class those hispanics with no regular job who were buying upper middle class housing. Second, we don't need to use derogatory terms here. There's a difference between being polite and being PC, If someone mugged you, you were mugged by a non asian minority, probably black, and if someone failed to pay a toxic mortgage in the bay area, he is a non asian minority, probably hispanic. The street crime problem is a race problem, and the financial crisis in America is a race problem. People who bought overpriced houses no money down in the Bay area were overwhelming non asian minority, and in the case of hispanics, conformed distinctively to stereotype. It is probable that they had no idea of the lies that were written on the loan application, which they could seldom read, so one can reasonably argue that the literate and frequently white loan officers were to blame, and the non white illiterates signing the papers were innocent ignorant dupes. I suppose they often were. But if innocent, also ignorant - thus stereotypical. The guy who mugs you is usually a stereotypical black, and the guy who bought an expensive house no money down at the peak of the bubble and never made a payment is usually a stereotypical hispanic. Those crooked loan officers were frequently white, and those crooked bankers were all white. But the guys who borrowed the money and never made payment are not white, and are for the most part Hispanic, and for the most part, stereotypical Hispanic. On the east cost (Baltimore, MD), I know of three families (neighbors of friends) who purchased and were later foreclosed upon. All were caucasian, so I'm not sure are for the most part Hispanic is an appropriate characterization. Jeff ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
I get back from vacation and suddenly my inbox is filled with misconceptions. While this is supossed to be a fairly technical mailinglist (about cryptography) it seems clear many people haven't quite understood bitcoins' workings. Let me break it down: * With a private/public key combination you can sign a message stating you're transferring a certain fraction of value (a bitcoin is what we call the 1 value). * This message you sent to nodes within the bitcoin network. * Each node checks whether or not your transaction can be executed and compiles these correct transactions into a 'block'. * Each node will try to find a proof-of-work for the block he made. Once he has it, he can ship the block off towards everywhere (as many as possible other nodes). * Recieving nodes will check the block and when they accept it, put a reference (hash) to it in their next block. The resulting chain of blocks is called the block 'chain' Now that the transaction is solidified in a block one can proof he has some amount of money, by referencing a payment to him in the block. How do the first bitcoins enter the system? By making a block one gets an award. The amount given per award is getting steadily lower. If you're thinking you can get rich quick by letting your computer solve blocks, think again! There's only one block to be solved every ten minutes, if it goes to fast the blocks will get harder, and there's a lot of people trying to solve it, you're electricity will likely cost you more than solving blocks is going to earn you. You're welcome to try though, solving a block makes transactions happen. What will happen when the awards are nearly gone? Then the total amount of bitcoins will stay nearly the same. This'll happen after quite some years. The total amount will be nearly 21 million bitcoins. The transactions will be paid for by bounty set on every transaction. As long as someone is willing to make the proof-of-work your transaction will end up in the block chain and be made permanent. That is basically the system. The whole whitepaperhttp://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdfisn't long or hard to understand and I highly suggest reading it. I know of only two (not dealbreaking) issues: 1. Transactions take time to happen (they are non-instant) (bank transactions are much worse though). 2. Because of the deflation all coins gotten earlier were easier to get and are now worth as much a block gotten now. I prefer deflation over inflation and if this really takes of the earliest of adaptors really deserved the money. On the (geo)economical side I think this is the best that every happend to the world. The bitcoin is quite violent right now, because there's still so little value being traded with them. But that will sort out and after that it'll just keep on getting more stable. Regular currency's (dollars, euro's, yen, whatever) are only as stable as their backing organisations or resource. Anything that goes up has got to fall, and bitcoins aren't anything, not even air! Trade has always been based on when I give you this, what can I do with what you give me back? and so, when people accept a certain amount of bitcoins for something, bitcoins have use and thus value. There is a wonderfull elegance in something we can trade at no costs, without any ability to cheat or adversely manipulate it's amount. Even without saying who (exactly) we are! It's propable that when you swap something as elementary as our not-wonderfull money with this it'll give some turbulance. And as with anything new, especially when it gives true freedom, people will get their panty's all up in a bunch. Usually their arguments either rest on not understanding what's going on, or claiming that this gives a security issue. The first argument I'll always counter with knowledge and logic. For the second argument I'd like to parphrase Benjamin Franklin: He who sacrifices essential freedom for safety, deserve neither.. Surely being able to own and transfer what you own is an essential freedom. I'd prefer not going into political conversation on here but I think it far too interesting not to have it at all. -- Lodewijk Lewis Andre de la Porte 2011/6/13 Nico Williams n...@cryptonector.com On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 10:50 AM, Nathan Loofbourrow njl...@gmail.com wrote: The good old market played a role here too. There are lots of investors whose risk profile dictates that they should be in safe investments, e.g. pension funds and old people. With the interest rates held on the floor, and Greenspan and Bernanke sitting on their chest, those safe investors started to buy up mortgages, because mortgages were big dumb investments and everyone paid their mortgage. You just proved the point: the market was distorted, with private actors acting _within_ the distorted market parameters. Thus people who needed to make low-risk investments did make what _seemed_ like low-risk investments (after all, real estate had been a low-risk
Re: [cryptography] Digital cash in the news...
ObCrypto: sorry, got nothing. This crisis has a lot to do with the fact that Bitcoin is doing well, and suggests demand for other cryptographic solutions. As orthodox places to put your money and perform transactions are increasingly suspect, people are now willing to consider unorthodox places to put their money and unorthodox means to transact, when formerly there was really no demand. Now there is demand. And that the crisis was caused by regulators is a major reason for that demand. If crypto's mission is to enable people to sign on to their banks without being phished, then this discussion is wholly irrelevant. If crypto's mission is to enable people to do transactions without being scammed, then existing scams not employing cryptography are wholly relevant. If government regulation was ineffectual or actively damaging, then we need cryptographic solutions that provide security in ways that bypass the government and regulators - hence the demand for bitcoin. If the crisis was lack of wise regulation, then we need a solution in which all transactions are, like paypal transactions and the various cell phone money schemes, rendered visible to authority and traceable. If the crisis was immoral and corrupt regulation, with politicians directing money to voting blocks and regulators spinning in the revolving door between government and banks, and often changing their hats without even changing their offices, wearing a regulator hat at the same desk where a short time before they had worn a banker hat, then we need a more cypherpunkish solution - such as bitcoin, and there is customer demand for a more cypherpunkish solution. ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Crypto-economics metadiscussion
On 2011-06-14 2:31 AM, Marsh Ray wrote: I 'aint no self-appointed moderator of this list and I do find the subject of economics terribly interesting, but maybe it would make sense to willfully confine the scope of our discussion of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies to the crypto side of it. The crypto side of it necessarily includes what crypto is doing, and what it should do, what crypto can be sold. The discussion of bitcoin was Why bitcoin Well, obviously, bitcoin is succeeding because the financial crisis has caused loss of trust in government approved and regulated solutions. That the financial crisis was caused by bad behavior that justified this loss of trust is controversial, and apt to result in off topic discussion. ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Is BitCoin a triple entry system?
Also related, Eric Hughes posted about something he called Encrypted Open Books on 1993-08-16. The idea was to allow an auditor to confirm the correctness of the accounts without being able to see the details of people's accounts. Regards, Zooko ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Crypto-economics metadiscussion
Well, obviously, bitcoin is succeeding because the financial crisis has caused loss of trust in government approved and regulated solutions. Obviously? I do not think this word means what you think it means. --Steve Bellovin, https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
Re: [cryptography] Crypto-economics metadiscussion
Marsh Ray ma...@extendedsubset.com writes: I 'aint no self-appointed moderator of this list and I do find the subject of economics terribly interesting, but maybe it would make sense to willfully confine the scope of our discussion of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies to the crypto side of it. Absolutely. We need a virtual Perry. Peter. ___ cryptography mailing list cryptography@randombit.net http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
