4 ms·

Yes, and we would argue that has grave implications. Cash is useful for the young, the old, those who can't participate in commercial banking, etc. We don't be

Yes, and we would argue that has grave implications. Cash is useful for the young, the old, those who can't participate in commercial banking, etc. We don't believe that this trend will necessarily reverse, but rather that a society with no cash is risky to live in.

jacobsenscott 4y ago
This is not cash though. For example you'll never be able to buy food with it, or pay your rent with it. You can't store it under your mattress for 10 years because the servers they must talk to won't be around in 10 years.
- paulgerhardt 4y ago
  Cash in its western form has been around since the 1600’s. It’s simply a promissory note. The difference is in this case the encoding for that promise is onchain. Cash has gone through many evolutions but it started as peer to peer agreements between merchants. Now it’s peer to peer agreements between programmers. There was a bit in the middle where it was agreements between governments or banks but this is isomorphicly the same. As for buying food. Yes. One can. Has been able to for a while. The future is here just not evenly distributed: https://twitter.com/alexmasmej/status/1228771055524704256?s=21&t=LtFA_NJrdsqCsvvlxHDK1g https://twitter.com/alexmasmej/status/1228771055524704256?s=...
  - jacobsenscott 4y ago
    I could probably convince someone to barter me some food for Pokemon cards, but that doesn't make Pokemon cards cash.
    - paulgerhardt 4y ago
      Correct, the thing all of those above instances have in common which Pokémon cards don’t is an explicit or implicit “promissory” feature. “Promissory” has a specific meaning. I can write you a contract promising you 1oz of gold to be paid at the next CES expo in Las Vegas 2023. You can hold onto that contract and redeem it at CES or swap it with a friend today for some tools and she can redeem it when she goes to CES in 2023 and the contract has reached maturity. This is what the first forms of cash were in the west. Fungible legal contracts issued by private parties for payment at their trade shows. Later, governments and private institutions started issuing these. The Bitcoin note works like this but the funds are escrowed in a contract-like mechanism on chain and can be accessed at maturity with a private key stored on a chip on the note. Which is a fancy way of saying it works the same but with software and the receiving party can check in real time that the note “is good for it” by confirming the funds are present in escrow. This is hacker news, you’re a hacker, as a thought exercise how would you go and build a Pokémon cash instrument?

jacobsenscott 4y ago

This is not cash though. For example you'll never be able to buy food with it, or pay your rent with it. You can't store it under your mattress for 10 years because the servers they must talk to won't be around in 10 years.

paulgerhardt 4y ago
Cash in its western form has been around since the 1600’s. It’s simply a promissory note. The difference is in this case the encoding for that promise is onchain. Cash has gone through many evolutions but it started as peer to peer agreements between merchants. Now it’s peer to peer agreements between programmers. There was a bit in the middle where it was agreements between governments or banks but this is isomorphicly the same. As for buying food. Yes. One can. Has been able to for a while. The future is here just not evenly distributed: https://twitter.com/alexmasmej/status/1228771055524704256?s=21&t=LtFA_NJrdsqCsvvlxHDK1g https://twitter.com/alexmasmej/status/1228771055524704256?s=...
- jacobsenscott 4y ago
  I could probably convince someone to barter me some food for Pokemon cards, but that doesn't make Pokemon cards cash.
  - paulgerhardt 4y ago
    Correct, the thing all of those above instances have in common which Pokémon cards don’t is an explicit or implicit “promissory” feature. “Promissory” has a specific meaning. I can write you a contract promising you 1oz of gold to be paid at the next CES expo in Las Vegas 2023. You can hold onto that contract and redeem it at CES or swap it with a friend today for some tools and she can redeem it when she goes to CES in 2023 and the contract has reached maturity. This is what the first forms of cash were in the west. Fungible legal contracts issued by private parties for payment at their trade shows. Later, governments and private institutions started issuing these. The Bitcoin note works like this but the funds are escrowed in a contract-like mechanism on chain and can be accessed at maturity with a private key stored on a chip on the note. Which is a fancy way of saying it works the same but with software and the receiving party can check in real time that the note “is good for it” by confirming the funds are present in escrow. This is hacker news, you’re a hacker, as a thought exercise how would you go and build a Pokémon cash instrument?