Re: Suggestion: Remove "non-fiat money" from the draft Web Payments IC Charter

RE: Doesn’t fiat imply government?

No.

(a) The US Fed, for example, is an ambiguous entity on the boundary of
commercial and government. WM Reuters which manages the dominant valuation
algorithm for currencies is entirely commercial. And so on.

(b) Well, fiat does imply some sort of "govenance" otherwise a fiat cannot
be declared. XRP is a fiat currency of the Ripple system, do declared by
its governance authority.

(c) Literally and at its most minimal, "Let x = 3"  is the use of fiat in
math, by the author.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=fiat&searchmode=none

(d) Comment in Forbes: "All Money Is Fiat Money"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2013/01/08/all-money-is-fiat-money/

***

If what's intended in that section of the Charter is to say "stateless
currencies", then some variant of this phrase would be better. But would
"Berkshares" that (I think) involve a regional government and some
municipalites in Massachussetts be inside our outside that concept?
http://www.berkshares.org/community_industry

Joseph


On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
>
> On 1 September 2014 17:24, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
>
>> I just now noticed the phrase "non-fiat money" in the second bullet point
>> of the first section on scope, which reads in its entirety:
>>
>> "Non-traditional currencies (this term covers multiple cases such as the
>> commonly called cryptocurrencies
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency>, digital currencies,
>> virtual currencies, non-fiat money. This category is sometimes designed as
>> "non-governmental units-of-account" by some International organizations )"
>>
>> The phrase "non-fiat money" is an anomaly in this otherwise precise and
>> meaningful statement. It introduces confusion, because whether or not
>> something is deemed by fiat to represent or to communicate value is
>> orthogonal to whether or not it is a traditional currency instrument.
>> Certainly, for example, BTC's reputation and reported unit value is based
>> upon a community fiat.
>>
>
> Doesn’t fiat imply government?
>
>
>>
>> Tentatively I would recommend to remove "non-fiat money" with no need to
>> replace it with anything instead.However perhaps those who recommended to
>> include this phrase would prefer to suggest a substitute that communicates
>> better what they intended, while also resolving the issue I'm raising here.
>>
>> --
>> Joseph Potvin
>> Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
>> The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
>> jpotvin@opman.ca
>> Mobile: 819-593-5983
>>
>
>


-- 
Joseph Potvin
Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
jpotvin@opman.ca
Mobile: 819-593-5983