Surviving the Cashless Cataclysm 463
MrSeb writes "There's been a lot of noise about Sweden becoming a cashless economy, and the potential repercussions that it might cause, most notably the (apparent) annihilation of privacy. Really, though, I think this is a load of hot air. Physical money might be on the way out, but that doesn't mean the end of anonymous, untraceable cash — it'll just become digital. If Bitcoin has taught us anything, it's possible to create an irreversible, cryptographic currency — but so far it has failed because it doesn't have sovereign backing. What if the US or UK (or any other country for that matter) issued digital cash? We would suddenly have an anonymous currency that can be kept on credit chips (or smartphones) and traded, just like paper money. No longer would handling money require expensive cash registers, safes, and secure collections; your smartphone could be your point of sale. It won't be easy to get governments to pass digital cash into law, though, not with big banks and megacorps lobbying for centralized, electronic, traceable currency. Here's hoping Sweden makes the right choice when the referendum to retire physical money finally rolls around."
Re:Bitcoin is a joke! (Score:4, Funny)
Give us a break about BitCoin and this non-sense that given the fact that it failed was to be blamed on not having sovereign backing. If it had no one would have used it as the only ones using it are criminals. Yes, criminals. Most are trying either to avoid paying taxes.
Back in the 60s, there was also a lot of noise about "we need a currency the government can't destroy by printing endless amounts", because we had recently officially left the gold standard (we had unofficially left it under FDR when he outlawed private ownership of gold). Being the 60s, one often-discussed proposal was the use of hemp-backed currency. A note might be backed by 20 pounds of hemp (and be printed on hemp paper, of course). But that was mostly hippies discussing this, and so it went nowhere.
From what little I've read, to the extent BitCoins are in use, it's as an underground currency, mostly to buy illegal drugs (I'm a bit skeptical, but it could be so). So perhaps we've come full circle to a new hemp-backed currency? I kind of hope so, just for the humor value.
Re:Secure = Traceable (Score:4, Funny)
Buying politicians - wait, that's the other way around.
Easy! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:5, Funny)
But---you use the apostrophe to form the plural, so you're still in. Congrats.