[Cryptography] IBM looking at adopting bitcoin technology for major currencies

[Ray Dillinger]

On 03/13/2015 01:16 PM, John Levine wrote:

> I don't think that any normal investors or businesses would be
> interested in a dollar denominated blockchain unless they were
> confident they could turn their blockchain entries into real dollars
> in a real bank, with the level of confidence that they have in the
> financial intermediaries they use now.  So you'd need entities in
> there who waer sufficiently credible and had a way to turn dollars
> into new blocks, and to turn the blocks back into dollars.  That means
> large banks, perhaps the central bank.
> 
> By the time you do that, they might as well also do what Phill's
> notaries do, and it's starting to look a lot like an ordinary digital
> currency where the transactions are handled by the issuing bank.  So
> other than the sprinkling of bitcoin pixie dust for the easily
> distracted, it's hard to see how this would be a good idea, other than
> as an excuse for lowering the fees on electronic money transfers.

I think that the "who has control of the ledger" question is a serious
hot potato when central banks deal with each other.  This isn't about
their clients and businesses, this is about the fact that they don't
trust each other and want an open ledger that no single one of them, nor
any of the governments they work with/for, can control.

So, no, I don't expect the businesses and ordinary people to ever
see it; this sounds to me like a settlement system to be used
internationally between central banks.

				Bear

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