11 sats \ 9 replies \ @Scoresby OP 28 May \ parent \ on: Why can't you buy ecash from a Cashu mint? bitcoin
This is a good example. However, there is nothing in WoS that is similar to the bearer-ness of an ecash token.
My understanding of ecash is that when I give a token to someone else they have to return it to the mint and get issued a new one in order to ensure that I don't double spend them.
This would be akin to taking my WoS account, giving someone else the login info and then that person logging in and sweeping it to some account they control.
With ecash my understanding is that the mint doesn't see all the various tokens that are in existence. Whereas in WoS they always see all balances.
It seems to me that it is possible to trade ecash tokens to someone else without the mint knowing such a trade has happened. More difficult with WoS.
a JWT is literally a bearer token
transferring value from one JWT to another would require a DB tx, with ECash it requires a new signature
There's some added obfuscation by not using the DB, but thats only internally, and its not particularly useful relative to other method non-KYC custodians like WoS use... and you're left arguing the point that the usecase is large custodians, like the US Treasury or Coinbase
This means nothing for Bitcoin
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Again we come to this: am I wrong that the ecash mint cannot single out a specific token for freezing/blocking?
A web token can trivially be singled out.
A internal difference is important. I don't see how this would only apply to large custodians.
Not being able to selectively target tokens for some action seems very useful to me.
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single out a specific token
If that token was uniquely minted, yes, as mint events can use key-tweaking to distinguish mint rounds. Every ECash "buy" could be uniquely tainted, clients may have mitigations for that but it's ultimately a cat-mouse game that the NSA is likely steps ahead of.
web token can trivially be singled out.
A web token is still just another anonymous random string, so your point is moot
I don't see how this would only apply to large custodians.
Small custodians have insignificant anonset that is trivially undone by any kind of multi-stage hueristic
Not being able to selectively target tokens for some action seems very useful to me
You just want to believe that, there's no empirical rationale for it outside of KYC institutions
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Thanks for this comment. It's helpful. The idea of tainting every issued ecash token is something I have not heard about.
As to the size of the anonset: I do wish this was something there was more discussion about. Clearly there is some minimum number of users below which it's easy to disentangle different users.
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The whole narrative of ECash is propped up by spooks and scammers, so it's not allowed to be discussed generally in the podcastsphere
Reality is there's no use for this outside of the US Treasury and State-Banking, because even if you were concerned about your specific account getting nuked you simply wouldn't trust that custodian in the first place
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What's the evidence for spooks? You keep saying that, but it doesn't feel like a part of the real conversation here. When you make points about the mechanics of ecash protocols, it's interesting. When you say it's propped up by spooks and scammers...what is anyone supposed to say? It's not fruitful.
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Just google ECash, there's an ECash act (RFP) in Congress, NSA has published papers on it back in the 90's
The ECash companies are getting 10s in millions in funding pre-product
NGO's that just happen to toe-the-line of the Atlantic Council are raining on it
We've broken down technically how this is only useful for institutions
You can either recognize a pattern, or you can think everything is a coincidence.
The CIA isn't just going to come out and announce they're astrotufing ECash for their banking benefactors... but paying even a little bit of attention after these last few years it should be obvious.
When discussing trusted solutions discernment is implied.
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I feel about this the same way I feel about Tor. I see the points you make, but I also think (perhaps foolishly) that the tech can be useful.