[Cryptography] A little history, was What is total world transaction volume?

[John Levine]

In article <7a42432d-6484-9545-4913-3b792e5c6846 at rayservers.net> you write:
>Bitcoin is just one example of a deliverable asset.  It has certain
>effable properties which some might find desirable in a diversified
>portfolio of liquid assets.

Uh, OK.  I can see how that might make you want to buy the Winklevoss'
ETF, but I don't see what it has to do with a sort-of-bitcoin payment
card.


>Another possible asset might be "Amazon credits".  Amazon could issue
>credits that could be spent on their site, and also traded freely among
>the owners of credits.  It would be thhuper-nice if they could do it
>without ending up in prison.

>Then Walmart could issue credits.  Then Amazon and Walmart could provide
>a cross-platform currency trading feature based on something like this:

They do this now, only they call them things like gift certificates
and prepaid debit cards, and they are denominated in dollars, since
that is the currency you need if you want to buy stuff.  The
transaction range from nothing, buying a gift card at par, to rather
high, like 5% for some debit card reloads.

R's,
John

PS to moderator: I realize this is getting a long way from crypto.