GovCoin announced

[bb000]

Well, DollarCoin actually.

I've been listening to Seventh Sense by Joshua Cooper Ramo. Previously he was foreign editor at Time magazine, and is vice president and co-chief exec of Kissinger Associates, so he seems to well placed to speak for (or at least to) US political and business elites. The book is thought provoking, the key message is that the speed and ubiquity of networks is changing the structure of society faster than existing centers of power can cope with. The remedy that he refers to he calls "gatelands", basically closing borders, and networks of all sorts, and keeping tighter control on who is in or out of them, while making best use of the power of networks within them. Since listening I expect we will see the internet begin to fragment significantly in the next few years, along the lines of GeoIP restrictions which are already so widespread. Bitcoin is referred to throughout the book, as one of the examples of the new networked world taking the old one by surprise. I've an abridged extract of his conclusions on digital currency below - it's not encouraging, but not that threatening.

Today the most talked about model for an all digital currency is bitcoin, a system based on the algorithmic creation of money, mined from computation much like gold was once mined from the hills of California. Bitcoin's most appealing property is that it is not controlled by any government, it is meant to be free from political pressure, from the influence of central bankers, and the risk of national default. Bitcoin can be used anonymously, attracting druglords, tax evaders and bred a bitcoin black market economy.

Bitcoin, or something like it will have a role in future, but another kind of currency will appear too. This currency, instead of being anonymous, backed only by algorithms, and unlinked to any government as Bitcoin is, would be built for reliability, not mystery, ... transparent, traceable, backed by a major government and tied intimately to policy and credit. Imagine if the united states began to issue bitdollars, backed by the security of the United States.

Because its connected to a database, a BitDollar can be earmarked for specific purposes... foreign aid processed digitally could be traced and watched, it could be easily updated based on commodity prices and demand ... it will be a gateland.

What sort of digital currency will it be ... finance of the future will be filled with gatelands to make transactions safer, more reliable and to fit currency more tightly to policy. Control of such currency will be a source of real power, and a place of certain competition. It will be possible who is in or out of
such a system instantly - locking out Russian oligarchs and locking in Aid workers.

The country should... introduce bitdollars just as China has introduced it's own digital currency.

Any thoughts? Has this been mentioned here before, or are there any other signs that the US has plans to set up a digital currency learning lessons from Bitcoin?

[MingLee]

If I remember correctly Monero or some other coin a few years back was supposed to be backed by the dollar (and the government, but it was only ever really mentioned by the USD). So far all we see is the blockchain technology being investigated, and I don't believe there is all that much talk about the US government setting up a crypto that'll be their own.

[Junko]

So basically a centralized digital currency linked to and controlled by the government and thus influenced by central bankers - like what already exists with fiat. "...tied intimately to policy and credit." LOL, good luck with all that.

[ObscureBean]

So basically a centralized digital currency linked to and controlled by the government and thus influenced by central bankers - like what already exists with fiat. "...tied intimately to policy and credit." LOL, good luck with all that.

Actually there is a very good chance it would work, the vast majority of people have no problems with the current system and adding blockchain to the mix is going to be an upgrade and benefit everyone by increasing transparency, efficiency and lowering costs/fees. A government backed coin would be far easier for the masses to adopt than Bitcoin.

[bb000]

Actually there is a very good chance it would work, the vast majority of people have no problems with the current system and adding blockchain to the mix is going to be an upgrade and benefit everyone by increasing transparency, efficiency and lowering costs/fees. A government backed coin would be far easier for the masses to adopt than Bitcoin.

Except that if I understood it correctly he's proposing not to use a blockchain. The only way difference I see to what we have today is that it would cut out the banks, people would hold a balance directly with the government, who would say how (or if) they could spend their money. The only possible positive I can see is that in such a system taxes would not be necessary. As Junko says, good luck with that.

[bb000]

Anyone know what digital currency China has introduced?

[yayayo]

So basically a centralized digital currency linked to and controlled by the government and thus influenced by central bankers - like what already exists with fiat. "...tied intimately to policy and credit." LOL, good luck with all that.

Yeah, we already had various country-specific altcoin scams. A few years after this trend has vanished finally the government is becoming aware of this ingenious idea.

A centrally controlled cryptocoin makes no sense at all. It's a very inefficient form of service that Paypal offers today with centralized databases. If governments want surveillance they could just stay with traditional databases, but no - they have to waste even more wealth of their slaves to implement the most inefficient solution.

People talking about network fragmentation or Internet within borders are totally clueless about ongoing technologically developments. The Internet as we know it with centralized and controllable routing will soon turn into a pure P2P network with anonymous ad hoc connectivity. Bitcoin is only the vanguard of future developments, when the whole world will use distributed networks.

ya.ya.yo!

[bitbunnny]

Governmental cryptocurrency? Doesn't make much sense because this would be maybe too much alike to fiat system. The only reason for something like that would be that governments want to follow the trends and maybe create something similar to Bitcoin but on what they can have control.

[Denker]

So basically a centralized digital currency linked to and controlled by the government and thus influenced by central bankers - like what already exists with fiat. "...tied intimately to policy and credit." LOL, good luck with all that.

Yes that sums it up.
Noting will change.Just a different package, but the content is still the same.
As consens algorithm proof of authority will be used.Signing instead mining.
Permissioned access, which will be controlled by the banks and govs, who also will be the issuer.

[arseaboy]

I hope that everything will not be change in bitcoin world.. I mean a negative impact to us if government will intervene. Change is good for us if there will be an improvement that would make bitcoin more profitable.

[Kevin77]

Really ? let me keep my fingers crossed and see the impending inevitable milestone overtakes every thing so the world can be a free one. But I am scared, should that happen, don't you think there is going to be gross lawlessness among people in the entire world ?

[ekoice]

Even if the government introduce its digital currency,it will not make any difference because there is no space for decentralisation.It will be totally controlled by the government and same transaction procedure and same transaction fees which banks would charge.

[Gasturcas]

Even if the government introduce its digital currency,it will not make any difference because there is no space for decentralisation.It will be totally controlled by the government and same transaction procedure and same transaction fees which banks would charge.

i agree because its centralized everything won't change just like how the bank works so hopefully they
can build another system that cater decentralized in order to liberate us from banks procedure, lets
see if this can be converted and be successful.

[Adelajda]

Even if the government introduce its digital currency,it will not make any difference because there is no space for decentralisation.It will be totally controlled by the government and same transaction procedure and same transaction fees which banks would charge.

They would impose restrictions and rules just like we have today and it wont be a good solution and it is not the reason we use crypto currency is because you don't have any restrictions and everyone is free to use irrespective of any barriers

[Spoetnik]

Just wait until us pirates (File Sharers) have our own Ad-hoc based P2P world wide network.
I envision one of these days will be able to bypass ISP's entirely..
My idea has been to have pirates connect to each other directly.
If there was enough people and we cold work out the tech it would be plausible i think.

I would rather have us the people in charge of the web.
Not idiot dictators like Google etc.

We prates made Google who they are.. then when they got big they let us down.
They should have put their foot down and went to court in the early 2000's over piracy DMCA take down requests.
Once they gave them an inch..

Now Google's fate is sealed and predictable.

Us pirates will roam free.. sooner or later.

[adhitthana]

So basically a centralized digital currency linked to and controlled by the government and thus influenced by central bankers - like what already exists with fiat. "...tied intimately to policy and credit." LOL, good luck with all that.

Actually there is a very good chance it would work, the vast majority of people have no problems with the current system and adding blockchain to the mix is going to be an upgrade and benefit everyone by increasing transparency, efficiency and lowering costs/fees. A government backed coin would be far easier for the masses to adopt than Bitcoin.

Except that with more transparency people could have more insight into how money and credit work, and there would be a risk that they might begin to ask more questions or complain more

[Adelajda]

Just wait until us pirates (File Sharers) have our own Ad-hoc based P2P world wide network.
I envision one of these days will be able to bypass ISP's entirely..
My idea has been to have pirates connect to each other directly.
If there was enough people and we cold work out the tech it would be plausible i think.

I would rather have us the people in charge of the web.
Not idiot dictators like Google etc.

We prates made Google who they are.. then when they got big they let us down.
They should have put their foot down and went to court in the early 2000's over piracy DMCA take down requests.
Once they gave them an inch..

Now Google's fate is sealed and predictable.

Us pirates will roam free.. sooner or later.

pirates are already connected to each other for a very long time and i understand the sentiment you are having, web should be a free heaven and we dont need any corporate dictators to track our path,most of the sites are what they are because we used them as a platform but let me tell you one thing,good luck with joining every teams out in the pirate world ,the egos will make you run away