[Cryptography] [ANNOUNCE] HashCash Digital Cash

Ashish Gulhati crypto at ashish.neomailbox.com
Wed Jun 21 15:18:46 EDT 2017


> On Jun 21, 2017, at 6:24 AM, Jameson Lopp <jameson.lopp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Interesting idea; you already seem to be aware of its weaknesses. Any thoughts as to why someone would prefer to use HashCash over a trustless solution such as TumbleBit?

I don’t think there are any major weaknesses. I don’t agree that trusting a vault
is bad. More details on this are in the FAQ.

TumbleBit is only a mixer, and takes time to anonymize your bitcoin. Worse, it’s 
not really anonymizing it, it’s just mixing it with that of others who are also jumping 
through extra hoops just to anonymize their bitcoin (i.e. likely involved with something 
that is “frowned upon”) - so by mixing with TumbleBit you probably just increase 
your chances of receiving funds that have a tainted history. Plus you paint a
target on your back simply by using something whose sole purpose is to obfuscate 
your financial activity.

TumbleBit does nothing to address other shortcomings of Bitcoin, such as slow
transactions, high fees, or the need for every transaction to be logged forever.

HashCash is a full cash system. The current implementation uses Bitcoin for the
value base but that’s just because that’s a convenient way to leverage existing
networks at this point. HashCash isn’t tied to Bitcoin in any fundamental way and 
could be overlaid on any value base. Eventually I expect to see HashCash vaults 
based on precious metals, which is really the only way to have sound digital cash.

HashCash is useful for tons of situations where Bitcoin is not: Buying coffee,
micropayments, non-geek users, users without Internet access…

TumbleBit has no use-cases other than obfuscating funds, which makes it a
sitting duck for regulatory takedown. HashCash has many use-cases that it 
could become indispensable for (e.g. micropayments) which should (once these
use-cases are well integrated into the ’net’s workings) make it more difficult 
to take down HashCash vaults.

Also, IMO, despite the current tulip mania, Bitcoin will not be around very long.
Bitcoin is really just valueless Hashcash hashes with artificial scarcity bolted on
top, and tons of hype. Eventually the realization will dawn that Bitcoin’s 21 million
limit isn’t really any limit when you have 10,000 Bitcoin clones. The fact that Bitcoin 
has lost significant market share in the last few months is an indication that this
process is already underway.

At the moment Bitcoin works because that realization is still a long way from
hitting the mainstream, because its main competitor is fiat which is just a total
disaster, and because in a world of negative interest rates people will flock to anything
that appears to offer actual returns, even a bubble.

HashCash based on a real value backing such as precious metals will still be 
useful long after that bubble has burst.

Cheers

#!


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