[HN Gopher] Fictional Cryptocurrencies
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       Fictional Cryptocurrencies
        
       Author : gadtfly
       Score  : 53 points
       Date   : 2021-02-12 19:31 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (astralcodexten.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (astralcodexten.substack.com)
        
       | blamestross wrote:
       | It misses one of the coolest ones. Slow Money, from (Neptune's
       | Brood)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune%27s_Brood] is based
       | on using the speed of light and the triangle inequality to verify
       | transactions via the laws of physics.
       | 
       | You are allowed to double spend as long as the two expenditures
       | are outside each other's light cones.
        
         | LolWolf wrote:
         | I think these are just made up by Scott, but that is a
         | phenomenal-sounding book! I am quite curious and will check it
         | out :)
        
         | sxp wrote:
         | This was an awesome concept at the time. It was one of the
         | reasons I became pro-Bitcoin along with _Cryptonomicon_.
         | Unfortunately, Stross became anti-crypto afterwards:
         | https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-w...
         | 
         | The technolibertarian ideology that was in some of his earlier
         | writing were replaced with more authoritarian & leftist views
         | so he said "BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon
         | intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks,
         | with a Libertarian political agenda in mind--to damage states
         | ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial
         | transactions." as if it was a bad thing.
         | 
         | P.S, what's the basis of your username? Any relation to
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=cstross ?
        
           | AnthonyMouse wrote:
           | > as if it was a bad thing.
           | 
           | Future generations may look back on mandatory financial
           | surveillance the same way we look back on general warrants.
           | 
           | Especially because the claims don't match the requirements.
           | If you want to make sure someone is paying their income tax,
           | you don't need to know who the _buyer_ is. But the same is
           | true of sales tax, which is likewise collected by the seller.
           | 
           | And it's the buyer who most needs privacy. The mosque or
           | synagogue or gay bar or abortion clinic or adult book store
           | may not be hiding what it is from the government, but their
           | patrons shouldn't have to reveal that they're patrons.
           | 
           | Yet if you try to activate a prepaid credit card, they want
           | your name. For what?
        
       | epx wrote:
       | This will cost me some HN points (that could be a digital
       | currency itself) but
       | http://viuvasdobitcho.blogspot.com/2014/01/bitchocoin-launch...
        
         | bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
         | A centralized digital currency. Just like fiat currencies
         | nowadays.
        
       | vmception wrote:
       | Forgot to add PETRO to the list
       | 
       | Fictional because they never issued it
        
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       (page generated 2021-02-12 23:00 UTC)