Canadian Mint To Create Digital Currency 298
Oldcynic writes "The Canadian mint has allowed 500 developers to enter a contest to create a new digital currency. The currency would allow micro payments using electronic devices. From the article: 'Less than a week after the government announced the penny’s impending death, the Mint quietly unveiled its digital currency called MintChip.
Still in the research and development phase, MintChip will ultimately let people pay each other directly using smartphones, USB sticks, computers, tablets and clouds. The digital currency will be anonymous and good for small transactions — just like cash, the Mint says.
To make sure its technology meets the gold standard in a world where digital transactions are gaining steam, the Mint is holding a contest for software developers to create applications using the MintChip.'" It looks like the Canadian Mint might have a bit of Sweden envy.
A better name (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:A better name (Score:5, Insightful)
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It seems to be a distortion of the actual distortion the word undergoes in many Canadian mouths, which is akin to "aboat" but not quit such a long-o.
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It's not French for anything - Nova Scotia is Latin.
The French call it Nouvelle-Écosse, meaning New Scotland.
Re:A better name (Score:4, Interesting)
I lived in London for 15 years and never heard anyone speak in a way that was reminiscent of "aboot". :) I've read that in Scotland the separation of villages by as little at 10 miles could have villages barely able to understand each other in the "old days".
I'm on PEI now, where I grew up, and you'll find that in the fishing villages that were originally french there's people who say "dis, dat, dese, and dose" for "this, that, these, and those" and some other humorous applications, as artifacts of their ancestors pronunciation of 'th' and other letter combinations.
Most people I know pronounce 'about' with the latter syllable sounding like a 'bout' of boxing.
In the game studio I worked at we had people from all over the world, and it was noticeable in at least one American that they pronounced 'about' with an extra beat in the 'ow' part. So a two syllable word sounded like it had three syllables. Kind of a reverse of the Japanese tendency to remove syllables from pronunciation in common speech. (The name Asuka for example, which we'd hear as Oska)
Meanwhile If I talk to someone from the southern US, they think I have a funny accent. If I talk to someone from the west coast or someone that speaks with the common 'broadcast' dialect (notice that most major anchorpeople have a "neutral" accent) we can't immediately identify the area the other is from.
But there's also just as much dialect variety here as the US. Just like "Bawston" and "Bal'more", or down in "Noble's Holler" (Yay, Justified). Probably not as much as Scotland though.
Language is neat!
Re:A better name (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Canadian Rising (Score:3)
Canadian Rising is the cause. Its a linguistic distinction in much of English Canada (and some parts of the northern US) which alters the pronunciation of a few vowels combinations, essentially shortening the time it takes to make them. Most US English speakers do not make the distinction, and thus hear the sound differently, mistaking /au/ for /u/.
Its laughable to Canadians who can hear the distinction because the Americans seem clueless for not being able to hear it, but its just a matter of dialect. Most
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Almost all of you say it, to some degree or another. It's just an accent, so you don't hear it. I guess our version of "about" sounds weird to you in some way?
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Where are you from? When I visited out in Halifax I didn't notice it as much as when I visited northern Minnesota / Wisconsin. I'm going to guess that central canada has it a bit heavier than where ever you are from.
Re:A better name (Score:4, Insightful)
Loonie -> Toonie -> MintChip?
Clearly, the name should be "Moonie"
Then we can all sound like four-year-olds when we talk about "how much Moonies" a double-double costs.
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I would have gone the other way... L + 8 = T... L - 8 = D... digital currency, Doonie...
Re:A better name (Score:5, Funny)
You don't want to be a pirate with your DibLoons? Digital Loonies for all! Yarr!
Howabout (Score:2)
canadigit.
Canadian digital currency (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Canadian digital currency (Score:5, Informative)
"And unlike BitCoin, a peer-to-peer hosted digital currency with a fluctuating value, MintChip is simply a new way to exchange Canadian dollars. Plus, itâ(TM)s backed by the Canadian government. "
Re:Canadian digital currency (Score:5, Funny)
"And unlike BitCoin, a peer-to-peer hosted digital currency with a fluctuating value, MintChip is simply a new way to exchange Canadian dollars. Plus, itâ(TM)s backed by the Canadian government. "
Try imagining my original post spoken by Dave Thomas or Rick Moranis.
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The digital currency will be anonymous and good for small transactions — just like cash
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So it's like bitcoin eh?
If a government is creating it you should expect strong central control along with the ability for them to revoke and create money at will and some form of tax system built right in.
It's going to be a sick. sick parady of BitCoin, basicly SolidCoin.
Re:Canadian digital currency (Score:5, Informative)
If I can get my hands on it, I can tamper it. Period.
Ok, not me, but rather, an expert on the subject.
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If I can get my hands on it, I can tamper it. Period.
Ok, not me, but rather, an expert on the subject.
Security is a matter of balancing the cost/benefit - if the attacker incurs a cost of $1000 to break one device used for micropayments (assumed to be used for petty change), I'd say it is safe enough.
As a user, I'd rather have concerns on the anonymity of the transactions, though.
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Tamper-proof software? That's putting the trust in the wrong place and it's going to get tampered.
My Ass (Score:2)
What a depressingly boring example of the One Big Lie technique. Don't they know they're supposed to blame a minority for something?
Re:My Ass (Score:4, Interesting)
Even more amusing would be digital currency tripping over a patent or two, only to discover a few years down the track, Canada locked into making patent payments for 10% or more of the electronic currency they are trading.
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I assume there are patents covering most of the modern anti counterfeiting techniques that are in use along with the counterfeit detection techniques...
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They disclose many of the anti-counterfeiting techniques, especially the obvious ones like the new hundred I just got. Hard to hide that it is plastic, has holograms and even a transparent window on it. The idea is as much to discourage people from even trying to counterfeit as well as catching them.
Re:My Ass (Score:4, Informative)
Of course there is, just because you are are printing money doesn't mean you don't want to make money. Securency (involved in producing a lot of modern polymer notes [securency.com.au]) certainly hold patents on techniques they use.
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How would you even collect royalties on something like that? Every time a digital "coin" is produced, every transaction, or something else?
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In my personal experience of royalty claims... the claimant will want to be paid for any conceivable use of the "technology" even if it really has nothing to do with them. Create a unit, pay them. Transfer the unit, pay them. Bank the unit, pay them. Collect interest on the banked unit, pay them. Convert the unit into "real" money, pay them. Produce any sort of system that can be used to handle the units, pay them. Do the same thing on a mobile, pay them. ... or a social network etc. There's no com
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Canada doesn't have software/algorithm patents. Sorry.
Wiping out our savings (Score:5, Insightful)
Digital currency just means the Central bank can wipe-out our savings more efficiently (by devaluing the dollar). You work and scrimp to save a million dollars for retirement. But by the time you're an old man, its purchasing power will be diminished to just 100,000 thanks to the actions of the rich bankers,
We're heading in the wrong direction. We should be looking for a STABLE currency that can not be devalued.
Re:Wiping out our savings (Score:5, Funny)
Something like Canadian Tire money?
Re:Wiping out our savings (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this is 2 completely unrelated problems. What this article is talking about is a way to exchange Canadian Dollars with people without physically carrying and handing them paper bills or metal coins. The currency itself isn't changing, just the method of transfering it.
As for devaluation. This is actually a touchy subject, in some ways currency needs to devalue, doing so stops people from sitting on vast piles of it and keeps them spending it which keeps the economy going, which generates jobs, and allows more people to spend money. Of course it also needs not to devaluate too quickly for the reason you list in that you have to be able to save for future big purchases, and be able to save money for retirement. Balancing the 2 is very tricky, but also completely unrelated to this particular initiative.
Re:Wiping out our savings (Score:4, Insightful)
Currency does not need to be devalued, devaluation is theft. Hoarding is a false argument made by people who confuse money with wealth. Balancing the flow of wealth (ie: money) is indeed very tricky, so tricky in fact that it cannot be planned by a central authority using fanciful economic models but should rather be left to free markets. So fuck off "independent" central banks with your fractional reserve bullshit, the power to create money belongs only to the people.
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I would like every libertarian to conduct the following thought experiment:
What happens if one king owns all the gold?
I don't know what will happen when a libertarian conducts this experiment. I just know what happened when I conducted it. First, I realized that gold would have no use as currency in such a situation. All the other people in the kingdom would use silver. If the king owned all the silver, they would keep finding subsitutes in turn until they had something that circulated in reasonable amm
The thing is, gold is shiny... (Score:2)
That said, gold does have a tangible value, in that it represents X amount of labor to move Y tons of raw ore + Z amount of energy to refine it to a known amount of bullion, coin, ring, chain or what-have-you. In contrast to a printed banknote, of any denomination, that currently has only the tiniest of a fraction of worth compared to the "gold standard".
It may only be a coincidence, but the comparison o
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A revolution is what would happen. (Score:4, Interesting)
Followed quickly by a headless king.
This does not require an elaborate analysis, only a cursory reading of history.
Shhhhh (Score:3)
doing so stops people from sitting on vast piles of it and keeps them spending it which keeps the economy going, which generates jobs
Shhhhhh. Do you want people to figure out who the real job creators are? Let them, just once, count up how many jobs it costs if a million fewer people have the money to spend on nice things and they'll never vote for us.
Re:Wiping out our savings (Score:5, Insightful)
only an idiot would build their retirement in cash dollars. this is why as soon as you've got more than a few thousand bucks in cash savings you should invest them.
One of the many purposes of investjment is to preserve the value of wealth in an inflationary environment, where the devaluation of currency over time is assumed, and hedged against.
Re:Wiping out our savings (Score:5, Insightful)
Digital currency just means the Central bank can wipe-out our savings more efficiently (by devaluing the dollar).
I hate to break it to you, but "digital" has jack shit to do with whether or not a central bank can devalue the currency.
Hint: It can.
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Digital currency just means the Central bank can wipe-out our savings more efficiently (by devaluing the dollar).
Why do you think that the "digital" attribute is what enable them to do that? Like they aren't doing it already with printed banknotes or minted coins? You think it cost them much to add other 3 zeroes on a note?
Re:Wiping out our savings (Score:5, Insightful)
A properly run economy
Economy doesn't need to be run, it's not a car. It's like saying that ecosystems need to be run or the weather needs to be run or the water circulation needs to be run. It just happens because there are naturally existing forces that initiate actions.
Just look at the track record of human interventions in ecosystems to make it better. Aral Sea nearly gone, Australia is full of nasty foreign species that were to fix an existing problem, but caused greater one, Aswan Dam has its own share of problems. That's how good people are at controlling things they don't understand.
Thanks to decades of debt-heavy "optimization" geared to inflate the holy GDP metric, we have a global economy that is at the brink of collapse.
Re:Functioning Economies (Score:5, Interesting)
Not an economist here. However, if I am not mistaken, what makes an economy effective, is the exchange of money between its members.
What most businesses, economists and governments seem focused on is growth. If that means more people exchanging money, no problem. But if it refers to expansion of the economy by means of producing increasing amounts of raw materials then surely that is not sustainable in the long term? For instance, there is only a fixed available amount of timber we can harvest before we are denuding the Earth of its forests (the current method it seems). Surely its better to try to build a sustainable economic model so that our resources last us as long as possible no?
The other fallacy I think we see banded about is that if we give the ultra-rich corporations breaks on taxes, or support them via government bailouts, that they will then take that money and use it to create jobs. It seems to me that a lot of businesses accept the bailout gratefully, then put most of it in the bank to hedge their bets on future success. I would like to see some proof of this "trickle-down" concept, because what I see is various businesses being propped up by various governments and then either walking away with the money, or using it to create jobs - overseas, where they can maximize the benefits to them by utilizing cheap labor.
It seems to me that most jobs are being created by the small companies that open up and close regularly all around us. It might only be a job here or there but I bet the net aggregate of all those jobs is far greater than that represented by the occasional mass expansion of a major corporation here or there. Unfortunately all I seem to see of late is small businesses going out of business with nothing to replace them.
Security Through Obscurity (Score:5, Interesting)
MintChip operates in either an online or an offline mode. The online most is basically the same as EMV cards used in europ. The offline mode relies entirely on a master secret key which is on every single mintchip.
Let me repeat that, the security of offline transactions is based entirely on a secret which is on every single mintchip.
Right, good luck with that.
Re:Security Through Obscurity (Score:5, Insightful)
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In the digital cash context, anonymous or more properly, untracability, means the bank cannot correlate withdrawals with deposits. When you present a coin to the bank for deposit or exchange for an unspent coin, they know it is a good coin because it has a valid RSA signature, for instance, but they have no idea to whom they gave the coin originally. David Chaum patented a scheme based on RSA in the late 80's and his student Stefan Brands came up with another scheme (and there may be others.) Offline sup
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A patent granted in the late 80's would've expired by now.
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My hope is that this is a misunderstanding or simplification generated by either a PR person or reporter and not in fact what the people designing this have done.
What I find more likely (assuming they are doing this even remotely right) is that it relies on some form of cryptography where each MintChip as it's own unique security key that is secret from other users. Not security through obscurity, but rather public/private key cryptography which would be the only safe way to do this properly.
Obscure, Proprietary, Patented (Score:5, Informative)
Let me repeat that, the security of offline transactions is based entirely on a secret which is on every single mintchip.
I don't think that's true. I had a look at some of their protocol documentation---which isn't all that detailed---and it looks like they're probably using PKCS#7 signatures and X.509 certificates.
Unfortunately, they aren't willing to publish enough information to actually analyze the security of the system to determine whether it's trustworthy [mintchipchallenge.com] (nothing about how the chip itself is secured, for example), but they have released enough information that we can figure out some limits on its security, and it doesn't look all that great. I'll probably get modded down for karma-whoring here, but here's what I posted on that forum, after looking at the limited documentation they provided on their website:
Let me get this straight: MintChip is a proprietary, patented, centralized, unpublished cryptosystem, where a trusted-third-party (the Mint) signs a certificate saying "this private key was stored in a tamper-resistant hardware token that is designed not to double-spend", so we're supposed to just be able to assume that any valid MintChip transaction signatures are trustworthy, even offline. As soon as one person extracts a private key from a MintChip token (which they will, given that there's a monetary incentive), the fundamental assumption that the whole system relies upon is destroyed.
Your organization appears to know this, which explains why you emphasize that MintChip is intended for "low value" transactions.
Fine, so the security of the whole system depends on the security of these hardware tokens, and yet you're "not in a position to release" any tangible information about them? Why should anyone invest in this system? Because you're The Mint?
You have the threat model wrong, too. Why on earth would you want to emulate cash? Cash is easy to counterfeit. It only remains useful because there's a high risk vs. payoff associated with uttering counterfeit cash. On the other hand, MintChip is supposed to be used online, so even if we detect a counterfeit, there's not much chance that the fraudster will actually go to jail. There's also a much larger number of potential fraudsters (basically, everyone connected to the Internet).
MintChip also doesn't deliver on its privacy claims. "No personal data is exchanged in the transaction." That's not true at all. According to your documentation, every MintChip has a *single*, 16-digit ID that's generated by the central authority and used in all transactions, so there's no reason why these IDs couldn't be tracked the way companies already track credit card numbers.
The funny thing is that this all could have been implemented on top of Bitcoin. Make some tamper-resistant hardware with some Bitcoin private keys inside it, and sign a certificate saying "the keys for these addresses are in tamper-proof hardware". For low-value transactions, they could be accepted at face value, but if we wanted greater certainty, we could inject the transaction into the Bitcoin network and wait for a few confirmations to avoid double-spend fraud.
Way back in 1999, Bruce Schneier posted a list of nine cryptography "snake oil" warning signs (http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html#snakeoil [schneier.com]). I see 3 of the 9 warning signs here already.
Re:Obscure, Proprietary, Patented (Score:5, Informative)
But can they do it right? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm actually all for digital currency. But there are a few caveats, the obvious security ones apply, don't want people copying my digital money, don't want people stealing my digital money, don't want people creating money out of thin air. But in addition it needs to have a few other characteristics:
- Doesn't cost me anything to use. This is why I currently ignore Interac email transfers and still write people cheques, it's much cheaper for me. (even if it should be in the bank's best interest to push me the other direction, the cheque should be a lot more expensive for them to process!)
- Isn't tied to any one platform. Don't tell me I need an iPhone, or a Windows PC, or any other specific device, make it work on just about anything (obviously within reason)
- Anonymous. (listed in the summary, so it's a good start, but I can't emphasize enough that you will never get rid of physical currency as long as you make all your digital currency leave a trail)
- Hard to lose. I don't want to lose all my cash to a hard drive crash, or other similar event, so I need to either be able to back it up, or better yet not have to. (of course this is very difficult to accomplish while maintaining both anonymity and security, but there are a lot of bright minds out there, hopefully someone can come up with a good way to do it.)
- Ideally non-network dependent. A couple of years ago requiring an internet connection for the transaction would have been a deal breaker, but with the increased ubiquity of the internet on mobile devices this has lowered somewhat in priority. I still think though that you need to be able to pay someone without necesarily having network access at the time.
Re:But can they do it right? (Score:5, Funny)
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For one thing, there are far more interesting spots to place a card reader onto. For another, there's NFC.
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Re:But can they do it right? (Score:5, Insightful)
copyright != counterfeiting. If I photocopy your $100 bill with a super-duper photocopier, did I rob you?
Actually yes, If you make a $100 bill and it enters general circulation the entire economy just inflated by $100. You robbed everyone who holds dollars.
Re:But can they do it right? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think we do. There's a lot of zealotry out there. I lot of vigorous disagreement over whether it's ok to be, say, gay or not. Get an abortion or not. Use one kind of drug or another. Be a member of one religion or another. I should be free to anonymously buy...whatever gay people buy...if I want. I should be able to go anonymously buy a nice bottle of scotch. I can now. If I want to drop a $20 in the collection plate, I can and no one's the wiser.
We should be able to focus less on proving we didn't do anything wrong and more on the idea that we don't HAVE to prove we didn't do anything wrong. The whole presumption of innocence thing, ya know?
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three of those are mutually exclusive, to a certain extent: Can't lose to a hard drive crash, not network dependent, and secure.
As are the "anonymity" and "can't lose to a hard drive crash" (replace HDD with whatever will support a mutable information about the amount of coins you store - "engraving" coins on a ROM won't make the coin digital).
so whats that thing I carry in my wallet? (Score:5, Interesting)
you know that bit of plastic with my information encoded on the back, I swipe it into a miniature computer where that information wisks away to be validated and approved ... fucking smoke signals?
its just a pet peeve of mine ... digital
digital currency, fucking already have it
digital distribution, thank god, those fucking analog CD's and DVD's were so poor sounding when I copied them in my car
digital download, how the hell else is that going to work?
I dont know what shit for brains started replacing "internet" with "digital' but its fucking retarded
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digital currency, fucking already have it
a creadit/debit card is not a form of currency. you do not trade credit cards with other people. it is essentially part of an authentication system that allows you to connect to a banks system and authorise a payment to someone else. you can not recieve payment using one.
digital distribution, thank god, those fucking analog CD's and DVD's were so poor sounding when I copied them in my car
those cd's and dvd's that contain digital content however were distributed via physical means. unless you have some sort of futuristic 3d printer and access to a service which will digitally transfer the required data for said printer to 'c
Glow in the Dark Dino Bones Coin More Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
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Canada as a test bed (Score:2)
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That would probably be because you've had a working solution (Interac) long before that, so there weren't that many incentives to introduce such a thing. Australia & New Zealand have a similar thing with EFTPOS.
What advantage would this have over PayPal? (Score:3)
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- No fees
- None of PayPal's douchebaggedness.
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Re:What advantage would this have over PayPal? (Score:5, Informative)
What would this service offer that PayPal didn't?>
'It wouldn't be PayPal' is a necessary and sufficient condition for its existence.
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What would this service offer that PayPal didn't?
Lower fees.
Customer service.
A more respectable business model. You know they close accounts for stupid reasons and just keep the cash don't you?
No dirty trickys like converting non-USD debts to USD at their exchange rate in order to bump up the amount they claim people owe them.
Terms and conditions that are not an exercise in customer abuse.
Envy of Sweden? (Score:4, Insightful)
Was the summary written by an American by any chance? Canada embraced debit card transitions under the name "Interac" long before the US started experimenting with visa debit/check cards. I have a Interac bank card that I can use almost anywhere in Canada for making purchases which also works as a "visa debit" card in the US and as a visa that is tied to my checking account on some US online sites. We have been largely cashless for some time but I still like to have cash as a backup in case the interac network goes down which has happened quite a few times.
I remember one time going to the movies and I was one of a handful of people who actually had enough cash in the wallet to buy movie tickets and concession snacks while almost everyone else were up the creek without a paddle when the network went down in the entire city.
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I got a debit card in Canada in 1984, at the first bank that implemented one without requiring me to consent to a credit check as part of the application process. It's like, dude, it's a debit card. You're only giving me my own money back. We may have been ahead of the States but we're still a bit slow in the head.
Then I moved to Sweden. I was working and motorcycle
Woot! I got one of those developer spots. (Score:3, Interesting)
Digital Currency (Score:2)
translation....
How can we as the banking elite, make wealth creation at the push of a button on a computer for ourselves and our minions (any politician or judge)?
Without all of that Gold or Silver or value based paper that limits out ability to print money so we can fund unlimited wars to destroy and rape other countries using the USA military?
After all, we don't like currency that is backed by anything. We just want to make any we want, with no work involved at any amount we wish.
Plus, if all currency is
Non-troll question (Score:2)
This is a serious question - what real-life purchasing have you failed to offer because there is no cheap "micro payment" method you can accept?
I really want to know what opportunities I am missing out on, aside from "if you build it they will come" type dreams... (but I will accept those answers too, I suppose).
Maybe:
I would sell you an
awesome haiku for a nickle
if you could pay me
Corporate middlemen hate cash (Score:4, Interesting)
This system is supposed to handle micropayments. Yeah, the penny costs 1.6 cents to produce. But, because it's metal, it can easily survive being used in 10,000 transactions. This is equivalant to a surcharge of 0.016% per transaction. In the case of nickels/dimes/quarters and $1 and $2 coins, the overhead ratio becomes even more microscopic. Compare this with what credit card companies charge. From http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2009/04/16/f-cardfees.html [www.cbc.ca]
> Merchants pay two to four per cent of the sale price in various
> transaction fees whenever they accept a credit card for payment.
> âoePlayers you wouldnâ(TM)t have thought of beforeâ are looking for
> ways to get into the market of secure transactions, she said.
The article in the summary ( http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1159513--royal-canadian-mint-to-create-digital-currency [thestar.com] ) says...
> âoeYouâ(TM)re seeing competitors that have been in the space in a while
> and new competitors looking at the payments market as an opportunity.â
Being a middleman is very profitable. It would be even more profitable if every minor transaction was charged.
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My sarcasm detector is going off...
Central bank loans are virtual money anyway, so it doesn't matter.
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It would be if .999 posts were canada based also.
Argh, that isn't even english.
Re:Since this complaint is fashionable... (Score:4, Insightful)
"The fact that you won't face life in prison for possessing a joint or peeing on a fence.
The fact that your kids won't wind up in jail (with a permanent criminal record) because they backtalked a teacher."
Don't worry , we're getting there...
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Re:stuuuuuuuupidddddddddd (Score:4, Informative)
If the private key is encrypted, or the computer is offline, how are you going to steal the digital decryption key? You can protect bitcoin as well or better than regular money.
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If the private key is encrypted, or the computer is offline, how are you going to steal the digital decryption key? You can protect bitcoin as well or better than regular money.
You just answered your own question. The general population seems to have some phobia of encryption.