In an ideal economy, purchases are done face to face. The time of settlement is the time of payment, the two aren’t separated by days or weeks. It also encourages an economy to build in redundancy: if Amazon’s warehouse burns down, half the continent might be without stuff for a while. There is no way to burn down five hundred stores coast to coast though. And 500 stores coast to coast provide more jobs than a single multinational corp’s warehouse does.
Consider that in Japan, they all still use fax machines. Just because something uses more technology doesn’t make it better. We passed the peak long ago, and now we’re in techno hell, not techno paradise. Crypto promises more such hell, but I want to return to the “golden age.”
Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.
Good luck paying for anything with it online :)
Online shopping is a symptom of our sick economy.
In an ideal economy, purchases are done face to face. The time of settlement is the time of payment, the two aren’t separated by days or weeks. It also encourages an economy to build in redundancy: if Amazon’s warehouse burns down, half the continent might be without stuff for a while. There is no way to burn down five hundred stores coast to coast though. And 500 stores coast to coast provide more jobs than a single multinational corp’s warehouse does.
Consider that in Japan, they all still use fax machines. Just because something uses more technology doesn’t make it better. We passed the peak long ago, and now we’re in techno hell, not techno paradise. Crypto promises more such hell, but I want to return to the “golden age.”
Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.
None of that answers what I said…