The Royal Canadian Mint just announced a new alternative to BitCoin

[DeathAndTaxes]

The person on IRC informs me that the SD standard supports things other than block devices. These may be real "smart cards" in a micro-SD form-factor.

The protocol would seem to indicate that is the case.  The chip stores an irrevocable keypair.  The chip signs tx with private key which can be verified by other uses with the public key.  The chip decryments the value on spends and increases value on payments. 

Still the underlying problem still exists.  The attack vector is to remove private key(s) from the chip.  Once you do that you can forget payment tx which can't be detected by the other party.  Essentially print money out of thin air.  All the profit of counterfeiting without all the physical printing overhead.

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[ShadowOfHarbringer]

2.6 In addition, any individuals, teams, Organizations or Large Organizations with the intention of reverse engineering the SDK, the MintChips and/or the Remote MintChips are expressly excluded from Competition. The Sponsor and the Administrator reserve the right to exclude such individuals, teams, Organizations or Large Organizations at their sole discretion and at any time, whether the risk of reverse engineering is real or perceived.

- http://mintchipchallenge.com/rules

Not only do they not publish a protocol specification or source code: they prohibit third parties form doing the same. That (IMO) can mean only one thing: Security relies on "Copy Protection" Built into the SD card. In this case, CPRM with device revocation.

Correct.
To compete with Bitcoin, any new virtual currency needs to open its sources first.

Not opening sources immediately means that we cannot trust the currency creator. The conclusion is that this is another fiat money produced by another government, but this time it looks that they want to create a fully digital currency.

However it will be a lot of fun to observe as they get reverse engineered by hackers/cryptographers around the world and fail.

[evoorhees]

There were two features of Bitcoin which first made me so wild about it:

1) Decentralized - no party could prevent a transaction or freeze an account in any way.

2) New currency - was an entirely new currency, without perpetual debasement, not just a way to transfer USD, etc.

Without these two features, Bitcoin would be nothing. I think any "competitor" to Bitcoin without these two features will be feeble and irrelevant.

With that said, MintChip is somewhat exciting, and I hope it's successful as it will dovetail nicely with Bitcoin. Perhaps it will be one more bridge to Bitcoin that the peons can trample across as the global fiats fall apart.

Yes, but you are a libertarian asshat. Most regular people just want an easy way to send money with low fees.

I love that in order to not be an asshat I have to advocate coercion. 

I have no doubt the short-term adoption of something like MintChip would be faster than Bitcoin. It's sponsored by the State and placed in a nice digestible package for the serfs. But I care not about the short term - I care about the long term narrative of monies, and that's why Bitcoin interests me a great deal, and MintChip less so. To solve real problems one needs to fix the foundation of the problem - and that foundation is fiat currency.

The serfs may digest MintChip more readily, but I have little doubt as to the nutritional content of that consumption.

[benjamindees]

Apparently "non-asshats" advocate inflationary theft in order to subsidize consumerism.

[derail]

Actually a picture of Paul Krugman blowing up a car is an apt analogy.  The guy is a walking broken-window fallacy.  Isn't Syria next on the list of countries to be invaded in order to continue the debt-fueled ponzi of finite-fossil-resource-consumption?  So, Paul Krugman blowing up Syria in the name of debt-financed military Keynesianism, genius.  I wonder if the CIA wrote that script as well.

Personally I think anyone with an ounce of clue and two pennies to rub together (not Canadians soon lol) should rather take a look at some confirmed predictions of real science, as opposed to the Keynesian-voodoo-bullshit promoted by charlatans such as Krugman, to see just which system (realism or populist money-printing) is more "efficient" in the long run.  I think you'd find that they all end up at the same spot, just as the laws of physics dictate.  One gets there with poverty and starvation and debt-servitude and industrial collapse and massive die-offs, while the other at least attempts to avoid all of that by refusing to kowtow to populist imprudence.


http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-04/new-research-tracks-40-year-old-prediction-world-economy-will-collapse-2030

[/derail]

[cunicula]

confirmed predictions of real science

What is the number for the Ministry of Eugenics?

[RodeoX]

Apparently "non-asshats" advocate inflationary theft in order to subsidize consumerism.

[derail]

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-04/new-research-tracks-40-year-old-prediction-world-economy-will-collapse-2030

[/derail]

[derail]
As bleak as that graph looks, It could actually be much worse. All it would take is an atomic WW3 to send those lines straight down.  No one like to talk about it, but this planet is just about used up (assuming current trends). There are no more lands to discover and the population is exponentially growing. Enjoy it while you can.
Click only if you have a strong stomach -->http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
[/derail]

[molecular]

mintchip: the evolution of currency
bitcoin: the future of money

[Dutch Merganser]

I love the lack of focus I see here. Take all the obsolescent 19th century economic theories you can find, hell, even throw in Marxism, and they aren't enough to make bitcoin a successful payment system, they are quite simply irrelevant to that goal. So often when the topic of a competing payment system comes up here, discussion descends into still another circle jerk around these irrelevancies.

It's evident that this "odd assortment of uber-geeks, anarchists, libertarians, scammers and forex traders"¹ have little to offer or to inspire folks who would just like to pay for an ice cream cone using their phone, nor to folks who would just like to sell one that way. What I have seen instead is a loss of momentum towards using bitcoins for normal everyday aboveground transactions since 3rd quarter 2011.

Six months of at best sitting dead in the water is a long time, enough to give the competition a significant lead, particularly given the competition does not carry the reputation risk of bitcoin and is focused on the payment system application rather than fears of econopocalypse, zombie uprisings, or having nothing to take with you when you die 

All that said, bitcoin has been successful in three areas:
1. Speculation
2. Money laundering
3. Contraband trading e.g. Silk Road

IMO, it rather looks like bitcoin is headed towards the magical status of being an object lesson in "Be careful about what you ask for, you may get it". If you can't have the success you want, you may have to settle for the success you actually have.


1. Naomi O'Leary, "Bitcoin, the City traders' anarchic new toy"
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/01/traders-bitcoin-idUSL6E8ET5K620120401

[marcus_of_augustus]

It's evident that this "odd assortment of uber-geeks, anarchists, libertarians, scammers and forex traders"1 have little to offer or to inspire folks who would just like to pay for an ice cream cone using their phone, nor to folks who would just like to sell one that way. What I have seen instead is a loss of momentum towards using bitcoins for normal everyday aboveground transactions since 3rd quarter 2011.

Six months of at best sitting dead in the water is a long time, enough to give the competition a significant lead, particularly given the competition does not carry the reputation risk of bitcoin and is focused on the payment system application

Pretty negative view on all the dev. work that has gone on .... just what have you done to further buying your precious MintChip ice-cream with your phone? (sounds kind of irrelevant to me in the big scheme but if that's what twists your knobs ... )

Did you see there is a tenative iPhone app for Bitcoin ... ?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75673.0

Discussing interesting topics is not mutually exclusive to "inspiring folk who want to buy ice-creams using their phone" .... but I'm not going to go out of my way. You'll get the money you deserve methinks.

[benjamindees]

Frankly Bitcoin has a lot of obstacles to becoming a widespread payment system.  The largest, price volatility, has only in the last month or so begun to be solved.  The second largest, threat of failure, required the last six months in order to brush aside.  Things like implementation cost and ease-of-use will take time to work out.  The barrier to entry is fairly large.

The collection of businesses that sprang up around Bitcoin over the last year are only a small hint of what is to come.  It is somewhat early still.  Linux took a decade to enter mainstream consciousness, and another five years to reach widespread use.  Today it dominates a few niche areas.  Bitcoin may end up being similar.  Remember, while Linux only had to battle a few aging UNIX vendors, Bitcoin is literally challenging a system with limitless resources at its disposal.

[bitcool]

To me it looks like an experiment on post-dollar global currency:

[cunicula]

I love the lack of focus I see here.

1) Nicely put and accurate. Can I subscribe to your posts somehow?

2) It is a volunteer project with no central source of funding or leadership. Monetary incentive to develop useful applications is extremely limited. Charitable incentives are supposed to substitute for this. I made a suggestion about how to fix these problems by the way.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75029.0 However, I don't think that the lack of funding, professionalism, and central direction is widely perceived to be a problem around here.

[Dutch Merganser]

I love the lack of focus I see here.

1) Nicely put and accurate. Can I subscribe to your posts somehow?

2) It is a volunteer project with no central source of funding or leadership. Monetary incentive to develop useful applications is extremely limited. Charitable incentives are supposed to substitute for this. I made a suggestion about how to fix these problems by the way.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75029.0 However, I don't think that the lack of funding, professionalism, and central direction is widely perceived to be a problem around here.

1) Subscribe to me? Pish, I'm as full of crap as anyone, but even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while

2) I think bitcoin is such a interesting phenomenon in so many ways, but I do have perceptions that make it difficult for me to get on board with everything that comes with it. My 30 year career in various financial services like brokerage, insurance and banking doesn't mean I'm the enemy, just that I may have another frame of reference from something I've seen before. In fact, I admire efforts like Dwolla that are attempting to cut the take of my former employers

My operations are 100% open source linux. I dig open source deep and heavy, man, it's produces state of the art software of high quality better than any other process I've ever seen I even released a little freeware app in the early 1990s. I recall having a firm enthusiastically pick it up and start using it ( it was a disk optimizer for the old OS/2 HPFS file system ) and they had the hardest time accepting that I wasn't in a position to maintain and enhance it but I was more than happy to give away the source code.

Thanks for the kind words. Who knows, one of these days I might find another nut I can share.

[Dutch Merganser]

It's evident that this "odd assortment of uber-geeks, anarchists, libertarians, scammers and forex traders"1 have little to offer or to inspire folks who would just like to pay for an ice cream cone using their phone, nor to folks who would just like to sell one that way. What I have seen instead is a loss of momentum towards using bitcoins for normal everyday aboveground transactions since 3rd quarter 2011.

Six months of at best sitting dead in the water is a long time, enough to give the competition a significant lead, particularly given the competition does not carry the reputation risk of bitcoin and is focused on the payment system application

Pretty negative view on all the dev. work that has gone on .... just what have you done to further be uying your precious MintChip ice-cream with your phone? (sounds kind of irrelevant to me in the big scheme but if that's what twists your knobs ... )

Did you see there is a tenative iPhone app for Bitcoin ... ?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75673.0

Discussing interesting topics is not mutually exclusive to "inspiring folk who want to buy ice-creams using their phone" .... but I'm not going to go out of my way. You'll get the money you deserve methinks.

This wouldn't be the first time someone here has implied or suggested I should STFU unless I have a better idea, it's such a gamma minus response. BTW I have the money I deserve, more than I ever set out to accumulate, I'm what you call set for life.

As the development work goes, I spent the first 15 years of my career as a software developer, architect, and development team manager, I can appreciate it for what it is more than most people.

It is axiomatic that software is the most labor intensive disposable product in human history. For example, consider this train wreck which I watched from an uncomfortably close distance but was delighted to have absolutely no responsibility for. Around 1997, a certain Fortune 500 bank launched a huge system development project that was to be greater than any sliced bread the world had ever seen before. The project was continuously infested with people who were not makers or builders or engineers or even accountants, they were hand waving career hoppers focused only on looking good for their next promotion. There were hundreds of people dedicated to the effort, including a couple hundred software developers and other technical specialists.

Five years and $500 million later, I found myself sitting in a meeting called by the most senior vice president in the firm to decide the fate of a system that was so woefully inadequate that you couldn't even say it any more, it was a given. I was there to offer my opinions and did my level best to come up with salvage opportunities. As it turns out, the desired goal was agreement to take the whole thing out for a nice drive in the country, shoot it twice in the head, and bury it in an unmarked grave, and that's exactly what happened. The good news was that this abysmal failure, the biggest I've ever seen, never made it's way to the front page of the Wall Street Journal. That wasn't just good news, it was the single most important consideration, throwing away $500 million dollars on a clown show was no big deal at all.

You wanna hear another horror story? I have two more just like that one but not as costly, under $100 million, where the outcome was to chuck it all and start over.

It is the lot of every software developer to at some point cast their finest pearls before swine only to see them ground under cloven hooves. It can be a tough thing to accept and and even harder to let go of, but, as Britney Spears so sagely taught us all, "it is what it is".

[marcus_of_augustus]

Toot, toot ... mighty fine sounding horn you got there ... and what exactly are you saying because you have been involved with some of the biggest software disaster's ever you can recognise Bitcoin as one?

You know I don't really care what you think, believe, know, or think you believe you know but let's just say you don't strike me as a Satoshi .... sooo ... saying stuff like below just smells like a big bunch sour grapes ... or I don't know what.

It's evident that this "odd assortment of uber-geeks, anarchists, libertarians, scammers and forex traders"1 have little to offer or to inspire folks who would just like to pay for an ice cream cone using their phone,

[stochastic]

Why can't we have something as cool as Square's new payment by phone.  No swiping cards and not scanning QR codes.

https://squareup.com/pay-with-square

[cunicula]

Why can't we have something as cool as Square's new payment by phone.  No swiping cards and not scanning QR codes.

https://squareup.com/pay-with-square

Square is a company with a professional development team...

[Dutch Merganser]

Toot, toot ... mighty fine sounding horn you got there ... and what exactly are you saying because you have been involved with some of the biggest software disaster's ever you can recognise Bitcoin as one?

You know I don't really care what you think, believe, know, or think you believe you know but let's just say you don't strike me as a Satoshi .... sooo ... saying stuff like below just smells like a big bunch sour grapes ... or I don't know what.

It's evident that this "odd assortment of uber-geeks, anarchists, libertarians, scammers and forex traders"1 have little to offer or to inspire folks who would just like to pay for an ice cream cone using their phone,

ROTFLMFAO! THAT'S some feeble shit indeed. You are clearly confused as your limited knowledge and circular mental processes are not my shortcomings.

As regards Satoshi, the abandonment of public ownership for this 1.0 effort by a couple of Irish guys who worked in Japan or whoever they are does suggest that they do in fact know more than you or I about what bitcoin is and isn't. Good of you to bring this up.

Oh, and BTW, you can blow me any time, little girl, taking shit from inferior assholes like you just cracks me up, I can do it all day long. It's rather like the neighbor's chihuahua growling through the fence, all the time never knowing what a fine football he would make.

You may go back to being a loser now, you have plenty of company on this board.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Toot, toot ... mighty fine sounding horn you got there ... and what exactly are you saying because you have been involved with some of the biggest software disaster's ever you can recognise Bitcoin as one?

You know I don't really care what you think, believe, know, or think you believe you know but let's just say you don't strike me as a Satoshi .... sooo ... saying stuff like below just smells like a big bunch sour grapes ... or I don't know what.

It's evident that this "odd assortment of uber-geeks, anarchists, libertarians, scammers and forex traders"1 have little to offer or to inspire folks who would just like to pay for an ice cream cone using their phone,

ROTFLMFAO! THAT'S some feeble shit indeed. You are clearly confused as your limited knowledge and circular mental processes are not my shortcomings.

As regards Satoshi, the abandonment of public ownership for this 1.0 effort by a couple of Irish guys who worked in Japan or whoever they are does suggest that they do in fact know more than you or I about what bitcoin is and isn't. Good of you to bring this up.

Oh, and BTW, you can blow me any time, little girl, taking shit from inferior assholes like you just cracks me up, I can do it all day long. It's rather like the neighbor's chihuahua growling through the fence, all the time never knowing what a fine football he would make.

You may go back to being a loser now, you have plenty of company on this board.

I want you on my team, Dutch, and it would be my pleasure if you were ever to kick me off yours. BTW, I knew Satoshi was a couple Irish guys that holidayed in Japan.

~Bruno~

[cunicula]

My operations are 100% open source linux. I dig open source deep and heavy, man, it's produces state of the art software of high quality better than any other process I've ever seen I even released a little freeware app in the early 1990s. I recall having a firm enthusiastically pick it up and start using it ( it was a disk optimizer for the old OS/2 HPFS file system ) and they had the hardest time accepting that I wasn't in a position to maintain and enhance it but I was more than happy to give away the source code.

The fact that the core software development follows the open source model is not the big problem.

The problem is that bitcoin-related commercial ventures are left up to small-scale entrepreneurs. Any small-scale entrepreneur thinking about a commercial venture can see that a) the current market is miniscule. No profit worth speaking about is available. b) the future market may be big and profitable. However, there is no reason to expect that getting involved now will be that helpful in accessing this potential future market (which probably won't exist in any case).

The logical response to this is to buy some bitcoin and wait for someone else to make bitcoin succeed. If everyone waits simultaneously, then bitcoin fails. That is what is happening.

To get the ball rolling, you need to have an agency which is heavily invested in bitcoin (say to the tune of ten million USD) to spearhead and fund projects. They would have an incentive to do something professional because they could gain from currency appreciation. This needs to happen in order to get to the future where bitcoin can be big and profitable.

If an agency like this isn't created, bitcoin will continue to consist of hobby businesses. The profits from these businesses are so slim that even when they attract a reasonable amount of interest, the business owners often fail to maintain them. You certainly don't see them upgrading and becoming professional. That makes sense. There is no reason to invest money right now when there is no money to be made right now.