Mint Chip Technical Details

[Dan The Man]

Does anybody know how Mint Chip will actually work? How does it verify transaction? Is the transaction record kept on the chip, or does every transaction get checked by a central server somewhere?

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[hazek]

Just a few threads down from yours you have this one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75441.0

[Dan The Man]

Just a few threads down from yours you have this one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75441.0

Which is a sprawling 12 pages about the benefits and downsides of a government digital currency.

So can you tell me the details of how Mint Chip works? What kind of cryptography does it use? When and who does it need to communicate with? If you fall in a lake is your mint chip toast? Can you have multiple mint chips all running the same account? How would they know what the other one is doing?

[Stephen Gornick]

Should this be moved to the Alternate Cryptocurrencies board?
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0

[adamstgBit]

Just a few threads down from yours you have this one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75441.0

Which is a sprawling 12 pages about the benefits and downsides of a government digital currency.

So can you tell me the details of how Mint Chip works? What kind of cryptography does it use? When and who does it need to communicate with? If you fall in a lake is your mint chip toast? Can you have multiple mint chips all running the same account? How would they know what the other one is doing?

no one knows this, and if anyone does they are not allowed to give the public this information at this time. that's not stopping anyone from speculation that it will work like other chips have b4, and will fail because of this.... people see whatever they want to see.

[zer0]

I'm going to assume it's exactly like the Visa/MC chips where it generates a unique handshake per transaction and somebody standing 10ft from you holding a RF reader bought from ebay can steal your coins and spend them without you ever knowing.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Should this be moved to the Alternate Cryptocurrencies board?
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0

I don't think that's a good idea, for it's been argued that MintChip is not a cryptocurrency. Moving it there would be like claiming it is.

~Bruno~

[Stephen Gornick]

I don't think that's a good idea, for it's been argued that MintChip is not a cryptocurrency. Moving it there would be like claiming it is.

You're right.  The Off-Topic board would probably be more appropriate.

[Etlase2]

I'm going to assume it's exactly like the Visa/MC chips where it generates a unique handshake per transaction and somebody standing 10ft from you holding a RF reader bought from ebay can steal your coins and spend them without you ever knowing.

you need to be about an inch away but otherwise 100% accurate

[coinuser4000]

I'm going to assume it's exactly like the Visa/MC chips where it generates a unique handshake per transaction and somebody standing 10ft from you holding a RF reader bought from ebay can steal your coins and spend them without you ever knowing.

This.

If it's a chip, the first thing I want to do is stick it in the microwave and nuke it so it won't work. Microchips on my passport are bad, microchips on my credit cards are bad and microchips on my money are bad bad bad.

When a government takes control of something it tends to stop working well. Why would I want cryptocurrency issued (and regulated) by a government anyway? Isn't the whole point of Bitcoin that it is decentralized? Doesn't this remove one of the defining features of P2P cryptocurrency?

The reason i got interested in Bitcoin in the first place was that it circumvented the usual government-run banking systems.

[adamstgBit]

I'm going to assume it's exactly like the Visa/MC chips where it generates a unique handshake per transaction and somebody standing 10ft from you holding a RF reader bought from ebay can steal your coins and spend them without you ever knowing.

assuming makes and ass out of you and me.

...
When a government takes control of something it tends to stop working well. Why would I want cryptocurrency issued (and regulated) by a government anyway? Isn't the whole point of Bitcoin that it is decentralized? Doesn't this remove one of the defining features of P2P cryptocurrency?

The reason i got interested in Bitcoin in the first place was that it circumvented the usual government-run banking systems.

right but who cares, MintChip isn't going to revolutionize money(it doesn't even have the potential for that), its only going to make buying bitcoins easier(which has the potential revolutionize money!)  

any merchants that accepts mintchip can easily accept bitcoin too, because exchanging bitcoins for mintchip's USD or CAD can be automated and FREE! 0.00% exchange fee! how? P2P irreversible transactions Biatches  !

so thank Canada, they are working WITH us!

[zer0]

any merchants that accepts mintchip can easily accept bitcoin too, because exchanging bitcoins for mintchip's USD or CAD can be automated and FREE! 0.00% exchange fee! how? P2P irreversible transactions Biatches  !

Yeah if that merchant doesn't sell anything over $5-10
Mintchip is for "very small transactions" which is still not a bad idea.

Also you are assuming (lol) no fees. I doubt all these supposed cloud cluster merchant payment gateway ideas floated on their site will do free transactions. Canadian Mint provides the hardware and infrastructure, then all the middle men vultures descend and take fees performing transactions on their network to credit/debit your mintchip. They will contract this out to huge corporations for the most money possible.

There's also the issue of the fine print where they can disable your chip whenever they want and make you replace it, arbitrarily reflash the firmware, ect. Oops there goes all your bitcoins, we're not liable because the mintchip was never designed for it. Sorry

Still a good idea, but yeah I'd rather just find somebody on the street and trade bitcoins for cash with an open source Cryptostick with AES-256 instead of using banks, centralization, tracking, IDs..

[adamstgBit]

any merchants that accepts mintchip can easily accept bitcoin too, because exchanging bitcoins for mintchip's USD or CAD can be automated and FREE! 0.00% exchange fee! how? P2P irreversible transactions Biatches  !

Yeah if that merchant doesn't sell anything over $5-10
Mintchip is for "very small transactions" which is still not a bad idea.

Also you are assuming (lol) no fees. I doubt all these supposed cloud cluster merchant payment gateway ideas floated on their site will do free transactions. Canadian Mint provides the hardware and infrastructure, then all the middle men vultures descend and take fees performing transactions on their network to credit/debit your mintchip. They will contract this out to huge corporations for the most money possible.

There's also the issue of the fine print where they can disable your chip whenever they want and make you replace it, arbitrarily reflash the firmware, ect. Oops there goes all your bitcoins, we're not liable because the mintchip was never designed for it. Sorry

Still a good idea, but yeah I'd rather just find somebody on the street and trade bitcoins for cash instead of using banks, centralization, tracking, IDs..

If you wana use Mint Chip for transactions over 10,000$, go ahead.
If you wana to use a cloud cluster merchant payment gateway instead of using a decentralized p2p exchange, go head.
If you wana microwave your mintchip with money on it... go ahead.
If you wana trade 100BTC on the street for cash, go ahead!

There's also the issue of the fine print where they can disable your chip whenever they want and make you replace it, arbitrarily reflash the firmware, ect. Oops there goes all your bitcoins, we're not liable because the mintchip was never designed for it. Sorry

but the money in my bank account is safe right?

you have to stop thinking the government is out to get you...

[Phinnaeus Gage]

any merchants that accepts mintchip can easily accept bitcoin too, because exchanging bitcoins for mintchip's USD or CAD can be automated and FREE! 0.00% exchange fee! how? P2P irreversible transactions Biatches  !

Yeah if that merchant doesn't sell anything over $5-10
Mintchip is for "very small transactions" which is still not a bad idea.

Also you are assuming (lol) no fees. I doubt all these supposed cloud cluster merchant payment gateway ideas floated on their site will do free transactions. Canadian Mint provides the hardware and infrastructure, then all the middle men vultures descend and take fees performing transactions on their network to credit/debit your mintchip. They will contract this out to huge corporations for the most money possible.

There's also the issue of the fine print where they can disable your chip whenever they want and make you replace it, arbitrarily reflash the firmware, ect. Oops there goes all your bitcoins, we're not liable because the mintchip was never designed for it. Sorry

Still a good idea, but yeah I'd rather just find somebody on the street and trade bitcoins for cash with an open source Cryptostick with AES-256 instead of using banks, centralization, tracking, IDs..

Who is paying for all those chips that are going to be placed in smartphones? I'm sure they're not cheap.

~Bruno~

[adamstgBit]

any merchants that accepts mintchip can easily accept bitcoin too, because exchanging bitcoins for mintchip's USD or CAD can be automated and FREE! 0.00% exchange fee! how? P2P irreversible transactions Biatches  !

Yeah if that merchant doesn't sell anything over $5-10
Mintchip is for "very small transactions" which is still not a bad idea.

Also you are assuming (lol) no fees. I doubt all these supposed cloud cluster merchant payment gateway ideas floated on their site will do free transactions. Canadian Mint provides the hardware and infrastructure, then all the middle men vultures descend and take fees performing transactions on their network to credit/debit your mintchip. They will contract this out to huge corporations for the most money possible.

There's also the issue of the fine print where they can disable your chip whenever they want and make you replace it, arbitrarily reflash the firmware, ect. Oops there goes all your bitcoins, we're not liable because the mintchip was never designed for it. Sorry

Still a good idea, but yeah I'd rather just find somebody on the street and trade bitcoins for cash with an open source Cryptostick with AES-256 instead of using banks, centralization, tracking, IDs..

Who is paying for all those chips that are going to be placed in smartphones? I'm sure they're not cheap.

~Bruno~

chips are cheep if they are mass produced, question is will Apple want to support it? why not just us the chips in the cloud?

[zer0]

If you wana use Mint Chip for transactions over 10,000$, go ahead.

what

If you wana to use a cloud cluster merchant payment gateway instead of using a decentralized p2p exchange, go head.

mintchip is not decentralized

you have to stop thinking the government is out to get you...

it's not out to get me, just currently incompetent. it is specifically designed for future forced updates. If you hack it to hold BTC, then your hack is gone once it force updates and coins lost unless you back up all the keys.

so thank Canada, they are working WITH us!

lol. they completely shit talked bitcoin claiming it was basically doomed while stealing a lot of it's innovations, making it closed source and centralized, claiming they invented something totally awesome which is in reality, a mundane portable wallet to buy a $2 coffee with, secured with questionable cert authority 1990s technology and most likely visa paywave chip junk.

[adamstgBit]

If you wana use Mint Chip for transactions over 10,000$, go ahead.

what

Ya, that's right

If you wana to use a cloud cluster merchant payment gateway instead of using a decentralized p2p exchange, go head.

mintchip is not decentralized

so what? because its like cash you can exchange it in a decentralized manner

you have to stop thinking the government is out to get you...

it's not out to get me, just currently incompetent. it is specifically designed for future forced updates. If you hack it to hold BTC, then your hack is gone once it force updates and coins lost unless you back up all the keys.

ok, i have to agree with you, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

so thank Canada, they are working WITH us!

lol. they completely shit talked bitcoin claiming it was basically doomed while stealing a lot of it's innovations, making it closed source and centralized, claiming they invented something totally awesome which is in reality, a mundane portable wallet to buy a $2 coffee with, secured with questionable cert authority 1990s technology and most likely visa paywave chip junk.

you mean people on their forum picking at some "flaws" of bitcoin? (this goes both way) did the mint itself directly shit talked bitcoin?


all I'm saying is "COOL digital money!  " this makes the bitcoin world and the fiat world come closer, this is a good thing. we all know bitcion is better,but we can't live without money... so ill take want i can get

MintChip is cool end of story.

[Dan The Man]

any merchants that accepts mintchip can easily accept bitcoin too, because exchanging bitcoins for mintchip's USD or CAD can be automated and FREE! 0.00% exchange fee! how? P2P irreversible transactions Biatches  !

Yeah if that merchant doesn't sell anything over $5-10
Mintchip is for "very small transactions" which is still not a bad idea.

It's for very small transactions, as in that's one of it's main benefits over say Paypal or Visa. It's not limited to small transactions. Obviously even if it was limited you could easily make a big transaction as the sum of many small transactions.

[DeathAndTaxes]

any merchants that accepts mintchip can easily accept bitcoin too, because exchanging bitcoins for mintchip's USD or CAD can be automated and FREE! 0.00% exchange fee! how? P2P irreversible transactions Biatches  !

What makes you think MintChip will be free?  Name on instance where a monopoly gives away its product for free?

I am imagining
1) you pay for the mint chip
2) you pay to load the chip or unload the chip
3) you pay a tx fee on each tx.
4) when central bank declares chip v1.0 obsolete you pay for a new chip and also pay an upgrade fee to transfer value from old chips to new chips.

[DeathAndTaxes]

It's for very small transactions, as in that's one of it's main benefits over say Paypal or Visa. It's not limited to small transactions. Obviously even if it was limited you could easily make a big transaction as the sum of many small transactions.

The design docs seem to indicate the chips will enforce a hard limit on the amount of funds which can be stored on each chip.  Of course the chips aren't free either.

So yeah I guess if you decide to buy 100 mintchips (at what $10 ea?) then pay a broker a fee for 100 loads on your 100 chips (will you even be able to do that, will broker's ask for detailed ID and limit one person to 1 active chip?) and hook them into a rats nets of usb cables and hub and use them to process 100x the enforced limit.

I doubt many people will do that.

What is the limit?  Well it is closed source and the specs don't state but I guarantee a limit will be enforced if no other reason than AML.  Also remember if a chip is hacked the amount of funds the central bank loses is directly related to the size of the chip (and # of tx that can be completed before blocking the hack) so there is another reason to limit both the max value on the chip and the max tx size.