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The value of this is significant. Great work. If authoritarian governments want to take away cash, this gives an incentive and mechanism for privately minted c

The value of this is significant. Great work. If authoritarian governments want to take away cash, this gives an incentive and mechanism for privately minted cash that will change the dynamic. I wonder though, how to mitigate against physical forgery. I get the feeling that this could work out much more trustable than even the best anti-counterfeit technologies presently used for cash currency.

ccamrobertson 4y ago
Thank you -- as another commenter noted we cannot act as the Secret Service to remove counterfeit notes from circulation, so the implication probably is that folks need to get into the habit of scanning notes prior to acceptance.
arlort 4y ago
> If authoritarian governments want to take away cash If an authoritarian government is taking away cash they've already passed the step at which making/importing this kind of object is illegal And if you can import this kind of privately minted note then you can also import foreign cash whose value people can trust without having to destroy it and for which they don't have to remember a password (for each note I imagine, it's not clear from the website how any part of it works) There are use cases for these kind of tokens but I can't find one which is efficiently solving a problem not uniquely tailored to rich free countries Just in case, by tokens I am (in this comment) just referring to the notes, not the concept of bitcoin in general
rchaud 4y ago
The private sector has done orders of magnitude more to make societies cashless than any government ever could.
alasdair_ 4y ago
An authoritarian government can just seize the centralized servers that are needed to run this whole system.
Termitiono 4y ago
Either you can use the internet than you don't need that note. You need internet to actually verify and take ownership of the value of it. It only helps if the giver doesn't have internet. And sure it's easier to smuggle this one note over a border than a suitcase bout you could smuggle actually anything with an offline wallet in it like USB stick, CD etc. Why is this significant in your eyes? I'm lost
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > Why is this significant in your eyes A few reasons. First the company. The fact that startups have realised a future of cash involving different hybrid physical technologies is important. Activity in this space shows that people take cash and its unique social properties seriously and will invest in it. Secondly, the advance in cash technologies generally. Super thin "smart textiles" open up a new world for cash. If you think about it the technology that already goes into bank notes is amazing, but it's mostly aimed at anti-counterfeit. We had a brainstorm over here to few months ago to talk about hybrid physical cash. Ideas like using e-ink to display the current stored value, "paper" notes that could be debited, zero knowledge proofs to show the bearer has funds and title while both parties remain anonymous, ways to turn GNU Taler into hybrid cash, "contactless cash"... and much more. Lastly, while I am not a fan of Bitcoin for environmental reasons, I think that visible/tangible forms of cryptocurrency are an important piece of the jigsaw in bringing widespread acceptance and usage of next generation cryptocurrencies, because they have important social implications for freedom and democracy. As it is, it may not be a success (the phone verification is already a show-stopper for me precisely because I want digital cash that works independently of smartphones) - but first movers lay the groundwork for the future, so I'll be watching this.
  - Termitiono 4y ago
    I'm not sure if your first point is a necessity for other perhaps good ideas. They will either not make those notes or only do one batch due to it just being a novelty in it's current state. For me it feels like 'blind entrepreneur + we want to ship + we need to ship for more funding'. I would even like to support weird ideas if it wouldn't promote Bitcoin usage :-( I think your second point is more interesting: why do you think this digital to analog transition will be a thing? Even in Zimbabwe they already have 50% smartphones and those are only getting cheaper and cheaper and will continue to flood the market. My future imagines a smartphone only world for everything. From money, to house and car key. Germany now allows your passport or driver license on your phone. I think it will be much more interesting how we can make smartphone theft obsolete and phone recovery easy. Like how do I regain my phone's state when I loose it while traveling.

ccamrobertson 4y ago

Thank you -- as another commenter noted we cannot act as the Secret Service to remove counterfeit notes from circulation, so the implication probably is that folks need to get into the habit of scanning notes prior to acceptance.

arlort 4y ago

> If authoritarian governments want to take away cash If an authoritarian government is taking away cash they've already passed the step at which making/importing this kind of object is illegal And if you can import this kind of privately minted note then you can also import foreign cash whose value people can trust without having to destroy it and for which they don't have to remember a password (for each note I imagine, it's not clear from the website how any part of it works) There are use cases for these kind of tokens but I can't find one which is efficiently solving a problem not uniquely tailored to rich free countries Just in case, by tokens I am (in this comment) just referring to the notes, not the concept of bitcoin in general

rchaud 4y ago

The private sector has done orders of magnitude more to make societies cashless than any government ever could.

alasdair_ 4y ago

An authoritarian government can just seize the centralized servers that are needed to run this whole system.

Termitiono 4y ago

Either you can use the internet than you don't need that note. You need internet to actually verify and take ownership of the value of it. It only helps if the giver doesn't have internet. And sure it's easier to smuggle this one note over a border than a suitcase bout you could smuggle actually anything with an offline wallet in it like USB stick, CD etc. Why is this significant in your eyes? I'm lost

nonrandomstring 4y ago
> Why is this significant in your eyes A few reasons. First the company. The fact that startups have realised a future of cash involving different hybrid physical technologies is important. Activity in this space shows that people take cash and its unique social properties seriously and will invest in it. Secondly, the advance in cash technologies generally. Super thin "smart textiles" open up a new world for cash. If you think about it the technology that already goes into bank notes is amazing, but it's mostly aimed at anti-counterfeit. We had a brainstorm over here to few months ago to talk about hybrid physical cash. Ideas like using e-ink to display the current stored value, "paper" notes that could be debited, zero knowledge proofs to show the bearer has funds and title while both parties remain anonymous, ways to turn GNU Taler into hybrid cash, "contactless cash"... and much more. Lastly, while I am not a fan of Bitcoin for environmental reasons, I think that visible/tangible forms of cryptocurrency are an important piece of the jigsaw in bringing widespread acceptance and usage of next generation cryptocurrencies, because they have important social implications for freedom and democracy. As it is, it may not be a success (the phone verification is already a show-stopper for me precisely because I want digital cash that works independently of smartphones) - but first movers lay the groundwork for the future, so I'll be watching this.
- Termitiono 4y ago
  I'm not sure if your first point is a necessity for other perhaps good ideas. They will either not make those notes or only do one batch due to it just being a novelty in it's current state. For me it feels like 'blind entrepreneur + we want to ship + we need to ship for more funding'. I would even like to support weird ideas if it wouldn't promote Bitcoin usage :-( I think your second point is more interesting: why do you think this digital to analog transition will be a thing? Even in Zimbabwe they already have 50% smartphones and those are only getting cheaper and cheaper and will continue to flood the market. My future imagines a smartphone only world for everything. From money, to house and car key. Germany now allows your passport or driver license on your phone. I think it will be much more interesting how we can make smartphone theft obsolete and phone recovery easy. Like how do I regain my phone's state when I loose it while traveling.