Banking: Is this the future of money?

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Digital cash

The above reminds me of the Notgeld notes issued by German municipalities after WW I. During the Weimar Republic, hyper-inflation destroyed the Deutsch Mark.

Or maybe it will be mopre like the company stores in the old mining towns where you are paid in digital company credits which trader locally.

Personally, I have thought that a cashless society would shift more control over to the PTB computers that track the digits, but maybe not???

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), November 15, 1999

Answers

Private digital cash within a decade???? Boy thats a gutsy prediction. How about within a year. Or with www.e-gold. comits actually already here.

Take note of the backward-looking quote from the Lombard Street honcho bagging on the fact private digital cash wont have any gov backing and dovetail it with Uncle Bob's thread about The IRS & Y2k posted this morning. The income producing arm (IRS) of that precious 'gov backing' hasn't even done a basic inventory on how many computers they have at this late a date. As long as the Web stays up or comes back quick with proper backup this y2k deal will accelerate private digital currency trends. The ol' gov nation states are in trouble.

-- Downstreamer (downstream@bigfoot.com), November 15, 1999.


The Confederate sodiers were issued script, which experienced runaway inflation since it was essentially...worthless.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), November 15, 1999.

For anyone interested in this topic, I recommend the recently published fictional work 'Cryptonomicon' by Neal Stephenson (author of Snowcrash and The Diamond Age). Digital currency (backed by stolen WWII gold incidentally) forms a major element of the story, as do Cryptography, German U-boats, internet start-ups and fifty year old global conspiracies. A thoroughly good read !

-- a programmer (a@programmer.com), November 15, 1999.

Quirky fact: Roman soldiers were often paid in salt (thus the phrase "Worth his salt") because it had a had a fairly fixed value across the empire, even at the borders or in times of strife.

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 16, 1999.

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