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I don't get it. Is it some sort of concept art? What's the point? Sure, it can be used as money (assuming what authors say is correct). Virtually any physical
by krick 7y ago
I don't get it. Is it some sort of concept art? What's the point?
Sure, it can be used as money (assuming what authors say is correct). Virtually any physical items that are hard to fake can be used as money, as long as people believe it's worth something. And if we are okay with complicated and rather expensive manufacturing process (since Kong isn't something you find in the forest), it really is a non-problem to create a new "government-independent currency", print it and sell it. Nobody really gives a fuck about that, because money is worthless unless you can spend it. And as long as Costco doesn't accept Kong (or any other made-up currency), it would be hard for you to spend
it on anything other than unique hand-crafted chairs or cocaine. And it would be hard for them to start accepting Kong notes, while being a government-compliant entity that pays taxes, as every physical bill they get must be accounted for and put into a cashier machine.
And, by the way, since every Kong bill is unique, it isn't any more anonymous than dollar bills: i.e. pretty much anonymous as long as they change hands without touching real cashier machines or ATMs, which, as it happens, is not so long, because people don't generally exchange unique hand-crafted chairs for cocaine, they buy/sell it, then go to Costco to get some more conventional goods or services.
- paulgerhardt 7y agoKong has the useful property of peer-to-peer validation. Most paper currencies printed in your basement don't. Tokens loaded onto Kong Cash instruments and exchanged ephemerally in person between party A and party B are more anonymous than tokens sent directly from party A to party B electronically which will be recorded for everyone to see forever. It's programmable money. It's cooler than non-programmable money. We're putting it out there as a toy.
- manigandham 7y agoIf you're handing off physically then just use cash. How is this any better? The exit to real currency will always reveal Kong transactions at some point. Real cash is more anonymous because it's seamlessly transacted everywhere.
- paulgerhardt 7y agoCurrent cash instruments are centralized.
- whb07 7y agoHmmmm and where do you get the machinery to create said Kong bills? Seems more convoluted than connecting a gaming pc to a network (please don’t say bitcoin can’t do that now, you could initially)
- paulgerhardt 7y agoI don't buy the argument that it's "turtles all the way down". Trust begins and ends at the chip level. I think its possible to make an open root of trust chip better than any solution on the market available today. I think the chips available on the market today are good enough for this specific application but not others.
- whb07 7y agoThe point of this I thought is to unify the virtual system with a physical product, in the pretty cash. So it isn’t just the chip now, is it? Otherwise why not just... use a hardware wallet and use bitcoin ? I do agree that people can’t picture or visualize in their mind a “bitcoin”, and so this solves that part. But then you’re left with the, how do people print this tangible pretty currency part.
- paulgerhardt 7y agoThe point is physical cash is really important to a functioning society. Cryptocurrencies are turning out to be really important but lack a physical cash instrument. Kong marries the two. Kong accomplishes that by minimizing trust down to the chip level - as opposed to the firmware or application level - so we can make these things trustlessly and cost effectively. Something like a Trezor is too expensive and dear to be treated like physical cash.
- krick 7y ago> peer-to-peer validation Maybe kind of a valid point, but... I don't know, maybe that varies from place to place a lot, but fake money doesn't feel like a huge problem around here. I mean, unless I am a tax-paying entity with a cashier machine, I don't even really care if a bill is fake or not: it is not fake, if somebody else accepts it. And I'm pretty sure somebody will, if I accepted it after looking at it. It doesn't only concern how bill was actually printed: it happened more than once that I had to worry about a bill because of its condition (tears, dirt, etc.) > more anonymous than tokens sent directly Yeah, as much as dollar bills are. That's why Monero is better than Ethereum, BTW. > It's cooler ... Oh, come on.
- paulgerhardt 7y agoPeer-to-peer validation is the point of bitcoin. That we can extend that concept to cash is the point of Kong.
- bduerst 7y agoThis is either some of the best satire in the world or I still don't get it. Probably the latter.
- Terretta 7y agoDon’t discount the former. Or performance art. Or a test for next season’s plot from Pied Piper or Hooli. Are we not entertained?
- majortennis 7y agothere's no next season the finale was monday
- kickscondor 7y agoLol "it's programmable celery. It's cooler than non-programmable celery."
- rytill 7y agoI mean... would that not be cooler?
- seandougall 7y agoProgrammable means something can have bugs. I prefer my celery bug-free.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- seandougall 7y ago> We're putting it out there as a toy. And that right there is the honesty that the rest of this thread is missing.
- drudu 7y agoYou got it - these are an excellent way to buy cocaine. Absolutely worthless (to a petty thief) and useful for buying drugs. Love it.