-snip-
Edit: I think the important part is that realcoin has full backing, which national currencies usually do not have.
Huh?
So you think realcoin is fine because it's backed up by something that is not?
I don't understand the logic in what you said.....
I don't think realcoin is ok, I do not think it will be relevant in two years.
There were some arguments thown back and forth. Compared to a currency like Singapore dollar, that tries to follow a bunch of other currencies in a band, it seems that realcoin in fact can be pegged exactly to the dollar, since it is fully backed. You could also say it is a dollar extension, a warehouse receipt for a dollar stored. So I think it is possible that it can follew the dollar in value closely.
It may work. There is a lot of benefit having dollar version of crypto coin. If they can convince merchant to accept it, and make it easy and secure for smart phone users to buy, the potential is higher than bitcoin as most bitcoin users are hoarding it hoping for higher price rather than using it.
How would the network be secured? Would it be done by a central authority or would it somehow be decentralized?
It has to be a central authorithy, but many mining centers around the world could still be employed to secure the payment system from technical problems.
