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Hmmmm 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 ca

by whb07 7y ago

Hmmmm 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 ago
I 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 ago
  The 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 ago
    The 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.
    - whb07 7y ago
      So kind of like how Samsung and HTC are starting to integrate hardware wallets into the phones? Couldn’t you imagine a world where this starts trending cheaper and cheaper and soon becomes a commodity ?
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        The difference is a crypto wallet on your Samsung phone when lost or stolen makes you bankrupt where google pay wallets shrug it off.
        torgian 7y ago
        And has the potential of being tracked by said companies and service providers
        arcticbull 7y ago
        Whereas your crypto transactions are literally published on a digital distributed ledger for all to see including those self same companies. I thought the transparent, digital, decentralized public ledger was the big reason to use it? Further, I'd suggest you read up on NFC and tokenization, it's not true that the companies in question actually do get access to that information unless they have separate-from-the-technology arrangements with payment processors. In either case I'd rather be tracked than bankrupt.
      - paulgerhardt 7y ago
        Kong is radical in that it only stores keys on the secure element and only stores code in the EVM. Kong is a toy implementation of this idea, but I think it's a very powerful idea.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      That’s why we have physical cash. It already has all the benefits of physical crypto with less headache.
    - fnord77 7y ago
      > The point is physical cash is really important to a functioning society. Not really. There's a couple northern european economies that are almost entirely cashless.
      - paulgerhardt 7y ago
        "Less cash but not cashless" is the motto of those northern european countries. Both the UK and the Netherlands for instance have issue reports[1][2] to ensure cash does not go away as it serves a vital purpose for protected classes. [1] https://www.accesstocash.org.uk/media/1087/final-report-final-web.pdf https://www.accesstocash.org.uk/media/1087/final-report-fina... - from the UK report "17% of the population would struggle in a cashless society" [2]https://www.dnb.nl/en/binaries/DNB%20Payments%20Strategy%202018-2021_tcm47-376439.pdf?2019121117 https://www.dnb.nl/en/binaries/DNB%20Payments%20Strategy%202... - from the DNB report "While we support the retailers’ and banks’ wish to encourage electronic payments, we do not seek to achieve a cashless society..."
        fnord77 7y ago
        I'm talking Sweden where it is next to impossible to pay with cash in most places. And impossible to find an ATM.

by whb07 7y ago

paulgerhardt 7y ago

I 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 ago
The 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 ago
  The 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.
  - whb07 7y ago
    So kind of like how Samsung and HTC are starting to integrate hardware wallets into the phones? Couldn’t you imagine a world where this starts trending cheaper and cheaper and soon becomes a commodity ?
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      The difference is a crypto wallet on your Samsung phone when lost or stolen makes you bankrupt where google pay wallets shrug it off.
      - torgian 7y ago
        And has the potential of being tracked by said companies and service providers
        arcticbull 7y ago
        Whereas your crypto transactions are literally published on a digital distributed ledger for all to see including those self same companies. I thought the transparent, digital, decentralized public ledger was the big reason to use it? Further, I'd suggest you read up on NFC and tokenization, it's not true that the companies in question actually do get access to that information unless they have separate-from-the-technology arrangements with payment processors. In either case I'd rather be tracked than bankrupt.
    - paulgerhardt 7y ago
      Kong is radical in that it only stores keys on the secure element and only stores code in the EVM. Kong is a toy implementation of this idea, but I think it's a very powerful idea.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    That’s why we have physical cash. It already has all the benefits of physical crypto with less headache.
  - fnord77 7y ago
    > The point is physical cash is really important to a functioning society. Not really. There's a couple northern european economies that are almost entirely cashless.
    - paulgerhardt 7y ago
      "Less cash but not cashless" is the motto of those northern european countries. Both the UK and the Netherlands for instance have issue reports[1][2] to ensure cash does not go away as it serves a vital purpose for protected classes. [1] https://www.accesstocash.org.uk/media/1087/final-report-final-web.pdf https://www.accesstocash.org.uk/media/1087/final-report-fina... - from the UK report "17% of the population would struggle in a cashless society" [2]https://www.dnb.nl/en/binaries/DNB%20Payments%20Strategy%202018-2021_tcm47-376439.pdf?2019121117 https://www.dnb.nl/en/binaries/DNB%20Payments%20Strategy%202... - from the DNB report "While we support the retailers’ and banks’ wish to encourage electronic payments, we do not seek to achieve a cashless society..."
      - fnord77 7y ago
        I'm talking Sweden where it is next to impossible to pay with cash in most places. And impossible to find an ATM.