Now, here comes a totally unexpected possibility. What if the automated gateway was able to handle NXTcash? All this gateway coding made me realize it just might be able to be done, which means we could get NXTcash much, much sooner as we dont have to port it to Java.
User mints NXTcash and sends public part + corresponding NXT to gateway, which issues NXTcash Asset to the gateway account. At this point nobody can trade the NXTcash asset.
User now has all that is needed to redeem the NXTcash in the private files from the minting process. For privacy, he copies it to a flash drive and goes to a public data center. From there he starts a NXTcash spend process, which only requires the private data on the flash drive and designates a brand new NXT acct to receive the NXTcash asset. Now the NXTcash asset can trade and the gateway would always have a minimum bid of 1:1 so the original amount spent is available (minus whatever fees)
This is a great idea. The sooner it is working, the better.
This is certainly not as good as having it built into the protocol as it relies on the gateways being operational and also that the gateways will always have a 1:1 repurchase bid in Asset Exchange. Also, the NXTcash trading on AE is not anonymous. This actually might really help avoid any stigma attached to using this tech. Only if you went out of your way to redeem the NXTcash on a different computer will you have true anonymity.
What does "NXTcash trading" refer to ? What will be anonymous and what will not ?
The "teleporting" happens when you take the private info and redeem it for previously minted NXTcash assets. It is the private info generated on your computer and presumably being redeemed via USB drive on a physically different computer and the redemption randomly chooses from all the previously minted, but unclaimed NXTcash assets.
So what is visible on the blockchain is:
Temporarily "burning" NXT to register public data, which also adds NXTcash assets to a global pool. We see the NXT coming in. We know that private data was created, but not the actual data. public data mathemagically gets added to Accumulator. We also see that the amount of NXTcash assets available increased, but this is not a surprise because it matches the amount of NXT "burned"
We probably want to recommend to people to wait until there are at least <TBD> NXTcash assets in the global pool.
At some point, we see the side effect of the private data being "spent", which will only be seen on the blockchain as an asset transfer from NXTcash global pool to a (brand new) NXT acct.
NXTcash assets trading on Asset Exchange is all visible, but I think this is actually good as there is nothing inherently evil with NXTcash itself. It just gives people the option to utilize the privacy step above.
At some point anybody that purchased NXTcash assets can simply redeem it for NXT by transferring it back to the NXTcash acct. This is also visible.
So, the first step is really a lot like going to the bank and getting a suitcase full of cash, which dont have any serial numbers. The spending step is like depositing the suitcase full of cash and getting fully traceable casino chips. And the final redemption is converting the casino chips back into your "bank" balance, eg. NXT acct.
James
