Re: Have you all seen this?

RE: MintChip ... is rather a method of storing and transferring ... CAD

Correct.

However let me add two points for reflection on the Bank of Canada side:

In a Oct 2013 "Report on Business" report on an inteview with the Bank
of Canada's new governor Stephen Poloz, the journalist says: "He tells
me twice over our two days together that he has told the bank's staff
that they will tell their grandchildren about the work they'll do over
the next few years. When I suggest that the fight against the
2008-2009 financial crisis will make for better war stories, Poloz
stops just short of calling that the easy part. "We were fighting
fires, but it was not a cerebral leap forward."
http://penny2.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/gam/20130927/ROBMAG_OCT2013_P34_35_36_37

On might wonder if the "cerebral leap forward" he's contemplating will
have something to do with his PhD. thesis: "Unstable velocity,
volatile exchange rates and currency substitution: the demand for
money in a multi-currency world"
http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/1145/

I reckon something like Mintchip can function as a multi-currency gift card.

However, since Mintchip is encumbered by restrictive patents and is
also on restricted source code, the intermediary (i.e. the Royal
Canadian Mint and the companies that are its chosen suppliers) will
decide which currencies will be permitted storage on the card.

This is part of the macro context in which I work in the Web Payments
space on market choice in all three aspects of money amongst the
parties to a contract, and whether or not the various intermediaries
will have a standard-compliant way of constraining those market
choices:  https://www.w3.org/community/webpayments/wiki/Choice_in_the_basic_attributes_of_pricing

Joseph Potvin

On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 12:56 PM, David Nicol <davidnicol@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 9:36 AM, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
>> David,  There's no mystery to the difference between an official
>> central bank and a separate official government agency that looks
>> after various printing and coinage operations.
>
> Right. So MintChip isn't a currency as such, it is rather a method of
> storing and transferring good old CAD. Or other. The protocol in the
> 2012 kits had eight bits reserved for currency specification, with
> just 0x01 defined, as CAD. In my opinion that isn't enough bits for a
> future with myriad first-class currencies.
>
> Completely opposed to Liberty Dollars, which is (was?) it's own thing,
> deliberately branded to appear official. Let us speak no more of that
> and I apologize for having brought it up.
>
>
>> I think this thread is off-topic for this list, however.
>
> The question on the floor, as I understand it, is, "Is MintChip a
> 'cryptocurrency'?" and, if one accepts either or both of "MintChip is
> not a currency, it is a technology" and "MintChip is not a currency,
> it's simply Canadian Dollars" the answer is clearly "No."
>
>
>
> --
> "Sing, cuckoo, sing.
> Death is a-comin' in.
> Sing, cuckoo, sing.
> Death is a-comin' in" -- Tuli Kupferberg

Received on Monday, 3 March 2014 18:52:33 UTC