[118330] in Cypherpunks
Re: A question about b-money... (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Choate)
Sat Sep 25 00:19:11 1999
From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-Id: <199909250408.XAA24721@einstein.ssz.com>
To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 23:08:06 -0500 (CDT)
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Reply-To: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
----- Forwarded message from Sean Roach -----
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 10:48:41 -0500
From: Sean Roach <roach_s@mail.intplsrv.net>
Subject: CDR: Re: A question about b-money... (fwd)
I suspect that if this system were set up the way it sounds, it would
have about the inflation rate of the novel "Snow Crash".
You would, in effect, be tying the b-money economy directly to the
deflation where computers are concerned. As computers became faster,
more people would want to mint b-money to get thier share. It seems
that it would end up something like the economy in California during
the gold rush. Or, the us dollar on a silver standard had they gone
to it in the early part of this century.
Essentially, as cycles became cheap, people would toss out a few
cycles, probably with their screen saver, to earn a little extra
spending money.
Unless I'm missing something critical here, and I very likely am, I
haven't read anything on b-money but what was mentioned here, the
system could never become stable so long as anyone could run a mint,
as money would constantly be added to the flow at a faster rate as
the technology curve made more and more people able to mint a buck in
under a second.
Of course, as I've mentioned before, I'm not a cryptographer, and
neither am I an economist.
----- End of forwarded message from Sean Roach -----
You've hit it right on the head. b-money as currently implimented lacks two
necessary requirements for a stable monetary system:
- A single point of generation
- The available supply of tokens is always less than the market
demand for tokens
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