Re: modeling wallets

On 17 May 2015 at 14:12, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:

> RE: "FinCEN and Department of Justice Settle Anti-Money Laundering Charges
> Against Crypto-Currency Company Ripple Labs"
>
> Below for reference I forward two of my messages to this list from 18
> November, 2013 and 4 June 2014, below. In particular:
>
> 18 November, 2013: "Why permit the holding of XRPs at all? In the grand
> scheme of things, what's the value added from their persistence?"
>
> 4 June 2014: "BTC is token-based. XRP is token-based. I came to the
> conclusion that the only legitimate "value" of 1 BTC is zero. BTC is merely
> the message-bearing token, it's not an instantiation of "the value"."
>
> I suggest that if RippleLabs had treated XRP as a zero-value transitory
> token with no persistence, it would not have violated the law that it has
> now been found to violate. And yet it would have been able to support the
> algorithmic functions that Ripple requires.
>

Not sure if this is still on topic, or it may be better to start a new
thread.  But

These tokens prevent spamming the network,  Proof of work was originally
devised as an anti spam mechanism e.g. for email.  I think spam assassin
does use it in this way.


>
>
> Joseph Potvin
> Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
> The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
> jpotvin@opman.ca
> Mobile: 819-593-5983
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca>
> Date: Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 2:42 PM
> Subject: Re: Ripple
> To: Evan Schwartz <evan@ripple.com>
> Cc: Web Payments CG <public-webpayments@w3.org>, Melvin Carvalho <
> melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>
>
> RE: Ripple Labs isn't playing a hoarding game but
>
> I don't have any opinion on that at this point, but some people think it
> is: http://ripplescam.org/  (Sorry if posting that link seems aggressive.
> That's not my intent. It's out there and shows up in searches, so I'm just
> being forthcoming.)
>
> RE: "The value of 1 XRP matters to currency traders, Ripple Labs, and
> anyone else holding XRP as an asset. "
>
> That seems entirely unnecessary to me, and a "bug" in the current business
> architecture of Ripple. Why permit the holding of XRPs at all? In the grand
> scheme of things, what's the value added from their persistence? I still
> advocate for 1 XRP = 1 banana, compared with the XRP's current design. (To
> see where I'm actually coming from, see:
> http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Outreach/2009_Symposium.htm and
> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/commodities-as-a-global-currency/article1346127/
> ...although even more I prefer an "Earth Reserve" base, which I and some
> colleagues are working on.)  Meanwhile the private consortium aspect of The
> Fed is hardly something to be replicated -- the more successful Ripple
> becomes, the more suspicion and "divergent" interests it will attract. It
> fear it would become the monetary instantiation of The Peter Principle.
>
> In any case, the value of a BTC or an XRP is nothing more than brand
> loyalty, what the accountants call the value of "goodwill", since any
> number of parallel currencies just like them can be created.
>
> Joseph Potvin
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca>
> Date: Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 5:45 AM
> Subject: Re: P2P Payment technologies & info (WAS Re: Is payment
> "timeliness" addressed in our work yet?)
> To: Web Payments CG <public-webpayments@w3.org>
>
>
> Dave,
>
> For further reflection, see work by Geoffrey Ingham, since it matters
> "what" we're speaking about sending around when discussing a payments
> system.
>
> http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-074560997X,subjectCd-EC06.html
>
> http://cas.umkc.edu/econ/economics/faculty/wray/601wray/Ingham_ontology%20of%20Money.pdf
> http://www.twill.info/the-ontology-of-money/
> http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137302953.0007
> Sample chapter http://www.palgrave.com/PDFs/9781137302946.pdf (The book
> was edited by my former thesis supervisor Geoff Harcourt. After the Paris
> workshop in April I travelled over to Cambridge UK to discuss some of the
> issues of payment with Ingham.
>
> The link I provided in another thread to an UNCITRAL document is well
> worth reading, to consider the significance of registry-based versus
> token-based ways of sending around the quantified entitlements and
> obligations that Ingham speaks of:
> http://www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/workinggroups/wg_4/wp_119_e.pdf
>
> For example, ACH (Automated Clearing House) is registry-based. BTC is
> token-based. XRP is token-based.
>
> I came to the conclusion that the only legitimate "value" of 1 BTC is
> zero. BTC is merely the message-bearing token, it's not an instantiation of
> "the value". It's limited supply is meaningless. For this reason I agree
> with the determination of courts in Finland, China and elsewhere that BTC
> is a digital commodity, a sort of electronic vehicle to transport
> information about the quantified entitlements and obligations that Ingham
> speaks of. A unit of BTC is therefore properly worth no more than the
> scanned image of a paper cheque. That scanned image is worth zero, and
> cannot be logically conflated with the value being exchanged.
>
> Some consider these matters "too academic". My response is that if what we
> were talking about was the development of standard specifications for
> international shipping containers, it would not be "too academic" to
> determine whether these containers had to be suitable to ship things like
> fresh tomatoes as well as steel bars.  It matters just as much what this
> "web payments" system is supposed to be shipping around.
>
> --
> Joseph Potvin
> Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
> The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
> jpotvin@opman.ca
> Mobile: 819-593-5983
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 7:36 AM, Timothy Holborn <
> timothy.holborn@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> http://www.paymentlawadvisor.com/2015/05/12/fincen-and-department-of-justice-settle-anti-money-laundering-charges-against-crypto-currency-company-ripple-labs/
>>
>> No real different in my world... Perhaps important for operators / users
>> though...
>>
>> On Sun, 17 May 2015 at 9:18 pm, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 17 May 2015 at 12:49, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>> RE: "Galbraith ... says it's not important in the grand scheme of
>>>> things"
>>>>
>>>
>>> That part was the comment from the regulator.  The bit in quotes was
>>> galbraith.
>>>
>>> By all means we could spend time trying to nail down a definition of
>>> money.  However, I've seen such discussions in the past, go on for 100s of
>>> hours and not make progress, so bear in mind that it may not be the most
>>> productive use of time.
>>>
>>> By using URIs to name things, it tends to be less restrictive.  Anything
>>> that can be named can be modeled.  They are just variable names.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> But we're not discussing the "grand scheme of things" here. We're
>>>> discussing technical informatics specifications.
>>>>
>>>> In the grand scheme of things, when the technical informatics specifications
>>>> in the domain of money & payment inherit deep architecture flaws (such as
>>>> ontological confusion) then the critical systems put in place inevitably
>>>> need to be sustained here and there with ad hoc work-arounds. Since 2007
>>>> we've all been witness to quite a few ad hoc work-arounds which have
>>>> no internal system logic, but which are driven by the need to prevent the
>>>> global money & payment "kernel" from crashing.
>>>>
>>>> Joseph Potvin
>>>> Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
>>>> The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
>>>> jpotvin@opman.ca
>>>> Mobile: 819-593-5983
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 6:03 AM, Melvin Carvalho <
>>>> melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 17 May 2015 at 04:50, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> You're going to need to point to a general definition of "money" if
>>>>>> you want to arrive at a general definition of a class of thing which
>>>>>> receives, contains and dispatches it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But let me ask: Do you consider "money" to be an entity, or a
>>>>>> relationship?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I've spoken to regulators about this.  One that I trust pointed me to
>>>>> Galbraith:
>>>>>
>>>>> Galbraith doesn't really give a hard definition because he says it's
>>>>> not important in the grand scheme of things... "The reader should proceed
>>>>> in these pages in the knowledge that money is nothing more or less
>>>>> than what he or she always thought it was - what is commonly offered
>>>>> or received for the purchase or sale of goods, services or other things."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In the context of IT architecture, the class Wallet is not a
>>>>>> container "of" money. It's a container of information "about" money. This
>>>>>> is because the class Money is not an entity, it's a relationship. That's a
>>>>>> rather critical difference to anyone's wallet ER diagram, certainly.
>>>>>> (See: "Money is a Social Relation
>>>>>> http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/29769872?uid=3739448&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21106849248993
>>>>>> )
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Money (the relation) might be stored with a tangible, say like gold.
>>>>>> Aside from looking nice, gold serves as a sort of solid metal "wallet".
>>>>>> Money (the relation) might otherwise be stored with a tangible like Bitcoin
>>>>>> -- most will be surprised that I call it a tangible, but the simple fact is
>>>>>> that it requires tangible human effort, computing resources and electrical
>>>>>> energy to "mine" and then to manage those units. People may say "gold is
>>>>>> money" or "bitcoin is money" but that's just colloquial loose language. A
>>>>>> quanity of Gold, or a Bitcoin, are entities. The connection with various
>>>>>> useful things you can exchange for a certain amount of gold or of Bitcoin
>>>>>> express the relationship. That relationship can stay the exactly same while
>>>>>> the entity varies.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Joseph Potvin
>>>>>> Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
>>>>>> The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
>>>>>> jpotvin@opman.ca
>>>>>> Mobile: 819-593-5983
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, May 16, 2015 at 8:58 PM, Manu Sporny <
>>>>>> msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 05/16/2015 08:17 AM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>>>>>>> > "A wallet is a container of money"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Web Payments IG started out talking about "digital wallets" and
>>>>>>> quickly moved away from the idea since a "digital wallet" can hold
>>>>>>> many
>>>>>>> other things as Tim and Jorge point out.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There seems to be some sort of consensus around the concept of an
>>>>>>> 'account' and a 'ledger'. Those terms aren't as accessible to most
>>>>>>> people was 'wallet', but it may be the right way to model these
>>>>>>> sorts of
>>>>>>> things.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> <Alice> <com:account> <Alice:#account1>
>>>>>>> <Alice:#account1> <com:currency> "USD".
>>>>>>> <Alice:#account1> <rdfs:label> "Party Money".
>>>>>>> <Alice:#account1> <com:ledger> <Alice:#ledger1>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -- manu
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
>>>>>>> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>>>>>>> blog: The Marathonic Dawn of Web Payments
>>>>>>> http://manu.sporny.org/2014/dawn-of-web-payments/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>> <819-593-5983>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>>
>
>
> --
>
> <819-593-5983>
>