
A New Digital Currency Whose Value Is Based on Your Reputation - cjdulberger
http://www.wired.com/2014/07/document-coin/
======
abruzzi
To be honest, I don't really get what this is for. Everybody I buy things
from, and everybody that buys things from me, has no idea who I am. I don't
know who they are either. I'm not "famous" so no stranger is going to afford
me any "reputation", and I intentionally have zero financial interaction with
people I know. (money and friendship don't go together in my opinion.)

~~~
jchrisa
Part of the idea is the commercial relationships you have, while being fairly
weak, are also a pretty good proof that you are a person and not a bot. So
spending coins provides a different kind of basis for public key
trustworthiness. Which when combined with the higher trust activity of minting
coins with your friends, could make maybe a deeper way to map identity to
public keys.

~~~
walterbell
Where does privacy fit into the philosophy and tech?

~~~
jchrisa
Short answer is I hope coins are shareable but that there's no requirement to
run them through any central authority. So they disclose information in
exchange for not privileging a particular party.

Edit: it should be possible to write an app that works only locally on the
phone via p2p sync, with no central server, that collects public signatures
from friend-of-a-friend wallets, that can provide a decent reach if there were
ever a critical mass of users. Opening the possibility to have a functioning
trust network without needing everyone to see everyone's coins.

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jchrisa
Hey, Chris Anderson here, this article is about my project. Here are slides
from my Open Source Bridge talk on the subject. First half is philosophy the
second half is tech: [https://speakerdeck.com/jchris/subjective-crypto-
currency](https://speakerdeck.com/jchris/subjective-crypto-currency)

~~~
rdl
Perhaps you should rename it "whuffie".

~~~
jchrisa
Down and Out is a good one, I also like [http://www.shareable.net/blog/the-
guy-who-worked-for-money](http://www.shareable.net/blog/the-guy-who-worked-
for-money)

I think there is something problematic about those stories, mostly because
they insist on making reputation into a single scalar value.

~~~
blazespin
Agreed, your improvement is important.

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powera
The last paragraph of the article, literally verbatim:

If it does take off, it will probably start small. It’s not hard to picture
groups of friends using it to create custom coins based on inside jokes.
Anderson says there would actually be a big benefit in the system being used
in this way, since it would get people to create and maintain public
encryption keys, setting the stage for more interesting uses later on.
“Everything has to start out as a joke these days,” he says. “Otherwise people
won’t take them seriously.”

~~~
anigbrowl
_literally verbatim_

Seems like you have some duplicative redundancy going on there...

~~~
dllthomas
I've reported the incident to the Department of Redundancy Department.

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Eliezer
Hi! This is the Market Economics Fairy! I can't tell whether this is just a
case of the journalist not understanding what properties make for a good unit
of exchange, or if the actual creator of the currency has never heard of the
Law of One Price! But we should always suspect the journalist first because
they have poorer incentives! Let me know if there's any link explaining what
the point of this currency really is! Sincerely, the Market Economics Fairy!

~~~
kaoD
Hi!

Even though you have a great point there, snarkiness is usually frowned upon
in Hacker News.

I'd also like to point out that, even if it's called a Law, it isn't a Law
(especially since there's an intent to challenge our notion of currency here).

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _snarkiness is usually frowned upon in Hacker News_

Hey!

Give it a pass; the Market Economics Fairy has been with us here for a long
time, and usually has some insightful things to say ;).

Sincerely,

Random HN'er who likes that style.

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drcode
I wish you good luck with your project, but your materials so far skirt over
the difficult problems (collusion, botnets, etc) and just discuss the easy
parts of building this type of system. Nonetheless, good luck, there's
definitely a market for a quality product in the niche.

~~~
jchrisa
What I like about the reaction so far is that folks get what I'm going for,
even with such a vague short description. I bet multiple engineering teams all
starting from just the stuff published so far would come out not too far from
each other. I think the Sibyl attack is blunted by the idea that this system
is designed to bootstrap from face to face interactions.

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blazespin
Incredible incredible stuff. It will be so massively niche for such a long
time, so you must have faith, but if you do, one day it will be very very
huge.

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jchrisa
Here is a deeper look. Not quite a spec, but a step in the direction of a
spec. So that folks can understand more precisely what I'm doing:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0D75T4_xjMNDdMdgaeRPtNv...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-0D75T4_xjMNDdMdgaeRPtNvU-
ggBJ_Z-FNg0DZIA_c)

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rbobby
For each person's coin I hold if that person goes "off the rails" then would
the value of any of their coins that I hold depreciate (possibly to 0)?

If yes, then how do you protect yourself from folks like Ken Lay, Jeff
Skilling, Bernie Madoff, Mel Gibson, Rob Ford, OJ Simpson... and so forth?

~~~
jchrisa
You got it. Coins value is totally subjective. So even junk coins might be
interesting in aggregate.

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xn
How is this different from Ripple?

