[Cryptography] Krugman blockchain currency skepticism

[Benjamin Kreuter]

On Mon, 2018-08-06 at 10:55 -0400, Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
> Benjamin Kreuter wrote on 08/05/2018 07:38 PM:
> 
> > Which is why I said at least one offline hop.  Once you have a 
> > certificate from the bank, your ability to use the system cannot
> > be revoked unless you are caught cheating.  With one offline hop,
> > you can receive and spend money without communicating with the
> > bank.
> 
> Yes, the revelation of double spenders is an excellent feature.

That is not the point; the point is that you cannot actually be cut off
from the system for arbitrary reasons.  Or to put it another way, this
is the kind of decentralization that is actually useful in dealing with
the "abuse-of-power attacks" you had mentioned.

> > > Also a Chaumian e-cash issue would presumably be redeemable for
> > > assets on demand, and the vaulted assets would be vulnerable to
> > > seizure.
> > 
> > Modern banking does not work like that.  Nothing is "vaulted," it
> > is all just book entries until you withdraw cash, and there is no
> > reason it would be any different with e-cash.
> 
> If you were to establish a Chaumian e-cash issue today, what would be
> the underlying assets for that issue?  I assume you would not issue
> tokens by fiat, but rather in response to bailment events.  If your
> answer to this question is "bank deposits," I would maintain that you
> do indeed deploy "vaulted" "assets" in your system.  I would also
> maintain that you are in a precarious legal position, on top of the
> risk of the bank simply closing your account.

Now you are shifting the goal posts.  I suggested e-cash as a way to
defend against attacks on the users of the payment system e.g. a
government pressuring a payment process to shut down some user's
account.  If the attack you are worried about is against the payment
system itself...well, as I said elsewhere, there are no Bitcoin users
in North Korea.  A government that wants to shut down an entire payment
system can shut down the entire payment system, regardless of how the
system works.

-- Ben
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