[5701] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Ecash without a mint
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Mon Sep 20 20:39:29 1999
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Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 17:41:55 -0400
To: Wei Dai <weidai@eskimo.com>
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net, cryptography@c2.net, dbs@philodox.com
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At 1:52 PM -0700 on 9/20/99, Wei Dai wrote:
> Unfortunately it seems unavoidable unless you have a trusted party control
> the money supply.
Yes. In business, they call this quaint phenomenon "financial
intermediation". ;-).
Seriously, if you have *lots* of intermediaries in competition, the
situation is *quite* stable and very robust, which is the whole point
of free banking.
Cheers,
RAH
-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
