A Cashless, High-Value, Anonymous Currency: How? 400
jfruh writes "The cashless future is one of those concepts that always seems to be just around the corner, but never quite gets here. There's been a lot of hype around Sweden going almost cashless, but most transactions there use easily traceable credit and debit cards. Bitcoin offers anonymity, but isn't backed by any government and has seen high-profile hacks and collapses in value. Could an experiment called MintChip brewing in Canada finally take us to cashless nirvana?"
Bitcoin hacked? Um no (Score:5, Informative)
Theft, yes. Bitcoin itself ever hacked, no.
Re:Bitcoin hacked? Um no (Score:1, Informative)
Not hacked, but never proven to be totally anonymous either. You still leave a 'paper' trail.
Exactly (Score:1, Informative)
Not being "backed" by any government is nothing less than the very first prerequisite of anonymity. Governments don't monopolize the business of currency and central planning (by force) for your benefit. They are in the business because it's absurdly profitable -- especially when you can print more currency out of thin air and use it to pay off your debt (something no private business could ever do without immediate financial punishment).
Re:Gold pressed Latinum. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gold pressed Latinum. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bitcoin hacked? Um no (Score:1, Informative)
Yes it can be hacked and guys have already proven you can counterfit Bitcoin by copying and spending the same bitcoins twice before the use of a bitcoin has been noticed by the system.
This is the problem a single bitcoin can be replicated over and over, so the mechanisim to show that a bitcoin was spent can be gamed in a way to spend the same bitcoin twice.
No (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't check to see that the transfer has been confirmed, sure, but that's no different than putting a bill on the counter and then snatching it away. It's not a hack, and you can't do it to someone that doesn't allow you to.
Re:Unifying online and offline payments (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chaum [wikipedia.org]
Real digital cash involves an issuing authority, which can be a bank or a government, but which neither knows who it has issued any specific token to nor when or where that token has been spent (well, strictly, it only requires this if it is to be both scalable and support offline payments). Real digital cash allows transactions to happen offline i.e. requiring no parties other than the two parties involved in the transaction. That is what Chaum and many other cryptographers spent lots of time developing.
Re:Gold (Score:4, Informative)
And that's precisely why it holds value.
Re:Gold pressed Latinum. (Score:2, Informative)
MintChip differs from bitcoin in one very critical aspect. Bitcoin is generated naturally. Scarcity is built into the model. MintChip works just like the Dollar (post silver standard). It's arbitrarily created by a central authority who can inflate or deflate as they see fit. So, bitcoin is proof of nothing. MintChip is just like anyother currency, but without a printing press. Bitcoin is entirely different.
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a Bitcoin hack because it's only possible if the person on the receiving end doesn't follow the Bitcoin protocol, which is to wait for at least one confirmation before treating a transfer as legitimate, with six confirmations being recommended. Most vendors wait three to six confirmations (30-60 minutes average), which is still a lot better than an ACH transfer at three-plus days, but one is more than enough to offset any reasonable risk of reversal for normal purchases.
If you don't have any confirmations then the transaction isn't part of the block chain, which means it might as well not exist so far as the rest of the Bitcoin network is concerned. At that point the signed transaction is just a declaration of intent, not an accomplished fact.