Funny, I've been reading these forums for months, yet had never felt the need to register and post. If I'd known about the newbie jail, I'd have posted something a long time ago.
So, let me throw out this crazy half-baked idea (simply for the purpose of newbie jail breaking, so please go easy with the criticism):
For generating new coins, instead of proof-of-work, why not proof-of-life, where a unit of currency (lets call it a "Apostrophe" or "Apos" for short) is generated for every
minute that a person is alive. The idea is that you will earn Apos as you live. You can claim your already lived but unspent Apos by registering yourself with a trusted 3rd-party that checks your birth certificate and issues you with the appropriate amount of Apos, which goes on the block-chain under one of your addresses (you can have many, as with Bitcoin). You can then spend those Apos any way you would a Bitcoin. New Apos accrued can be claimed periodically, again requiring that you approach a trusted 3rd-party and prove that you are who you say you are and, well, prove that you are indeed alive! Those new Apos can then be added to your wallet. As for double-spending you can rely on proof-of-work/proof-of-stake hybrid which has already been widely discussed in other threads.
For added craziness, each Apos (and their sub-units) can have a multiplier value attached to it that decreases with the "age" of the Apos. So not every Apos is equal, and old Apos are less valuable than new Apos. Perhaps an Apos that is 100 years old (i.e. that represents a minute of life 100 years ago) is said to have expired, and is removed from the economy. When you transfer a set amount to someone, the actual number of Apos transferred will be a function of their real value (having into account this multiplier).
Anyway, crazy idea I know. At least I hope it earned me a newbie jailbreak card!
