James A. Donald: Current Net Cash Proposals

1999 May 14 See all posts
James A. Donald: Current Net Cash Proposals @ Satoshi Nakamoto
Author

James A. Donald

Email

Site

https://satoshinakamoto.network

I have created this web page reviewing the various efforts to bring a cashlike medium to the internet.

"Existing proposals, and why they are going nowhere fast"

A lot of people have done a lot of things on these projects, and doubtless my somewhat cynical reviews contain many errors. I would appreciate some corrections.

Current Net Cash Proposals

In order to be useful, a protocol for the transfer of value for the internet must be on most desktops, in most browsers, in many web servers, yet many the existing proposals involve proprietary software, and many of them involve a banking monopoly for the issuer of the software. It seems unlikely that many other financial intermediaries would wish to participate in such a grotesquely uneven playing field.

Many of these proposals require the issuer and protocol developer to be intimately involved in every transaction, with the notable and important exception of the IBM and SOX proposals. They require everyone using cash to buy or sell on the net to have an account with the issuer and protocol developer, and the protocol developer's copyrights give it a total monopoly of net money issue.

For a protocol to become widely used, a wide variety of players must play along. There has to be something in it for everyone.


The Rest: Promising, but not yet quite existent, or existent but halted dead in the water.