20 sats \ 4 replies \ @Scoresby 31 May \ parent \ on: Ecash - Bullish or Bearish? bitcoin
Doesn't an ecash token differ from a DB entry in that the mint cannot stop me from trading it to another user?
I can't trade my zelle points (dollars in my bank account) without the bank's permission.
I can give you my ecash tokens and the only thing the mint can do to stop it is shut down the whole mint and stop doing business.
This is an important difference. And it us the thing that makes an ecash token more like an altcoin than a DB entry.
On the second point, if I directly trade ecash tokens for USD, there is no exchange function to the mint. WIth a LN gateway connected to the mint. If I sell them some ecash to get them to pay a LN invoice on my behalf, the mint has no insight on that transaction unless they are the runs running the gateway as well. I don't think there is any reason a mint won't have two or more LN gateways that you might use, run by different entities than the mint.
Yes, absolutely.
Everything I've said here should be taken as design suggestions for the Fedi team and other Federated Mint devs.
Technically, Bitcoin is just a fancy, decentralized database as well. People give the DB entries value because we recognize its use-case for money.
I'm suggesting that we don't allow ourselves to give ecash any value, based on principle. The same way we don't value shitcoins, even though they technically are similar to Bitcoin. It's the social layer that I'm appealing to here.
I'm asking the users and the devs of Mints to view ecash simply as the DB layer. To give it special value based on its decentralized properties, the way we do with Bitcoin, is akin to shitcoining.
It is very fuzzy and complicated, which is why I'm having this conversation today with people here. I'm trying to organize my own thoughts and see if others can poke holes in my arguments so I can refine them or change them.
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Yes, absolutely.
Sorry, I'm a bit confused. Can you elaborate? I'm particularly interested in your thoughts regarding the point that ecash is a bearer asset, while a DB entry is not.
I'm suggesting that we don't allow ourselves to give ecash any value, based on principle.
I think I have been taking the extreme opposite view as what you say here. I'm trying to say that in the future ecash tokens may have value on their own, like shitcoins, but good ones.