
Digital Currency: ten years before Bitcoin, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon - saurabh
http://www.laurelzuckerman.com/2013/03/digital-currency-ten-years-before-bitcoin-neal-stephensons-cryptonomicon-.html
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gws
Very different concept: the digital currency in Cryptonomicon was centralized,
to be issued by a bank or bank-like institution that owned massive gold
reserves and could thus be trusted. The anonymity could be guaranteed because
the bank would operate in national state that guaranteed anonymity by law (a
so-called data haven).

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arethuza
That was one bit of Cryptonomicon that bothered me - the Sultan simply decided
one day to guarantee anonymity, but he was an absolute monarch so he could
just as easily decide one day to remove anonymity.

[Mind you, that is a minor niggle - Cryptonomicon is one of my favourite
novels]

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gws
I agree it is totally unrealistic; no small country could resist the
international pressure that would generate

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elemeno
anarky - your comment is showing up as dead, which is a shame since it was
interesting

> And 5 years before Cryptonomicon there was Tim May's Cyphernomicon (which
> obviously inspired the title and theme of Stephenson's book).

> In 1995 there was Stephenson's short story in Wired about digital cash -
> "The Great Simoleon Caper".

> Of course, the protagonists of Atlas Shrugged had renounced paper money and
> started using privately minted gold coins from Midas Mulligan's Bank way
> back in 1957.

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AlisdairO
Honestly, Cryptonomicon is probably my favourite novel. A bit hard going the
first read through, but it's immensely re-readable.

~~~
psweber
Anathem makes Cryptonomicon look easy. I'm literally working my way through it
right now. Stephenson is one of my favorites, so it's worth it.

~~~
notdrunkatall
Try The Baroque Cycle. I rarely use the word epic, but it is a fitting
descriptor for that series.

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qengho
And 5 years before Cryptonomicon there was Tim May's Cyphernomicon (which
obviously inspired the title and theme of Stephenson's book).

In 1995 there was Stephenson's short story in Wired about digital cash - "The
Great Simoleon Caper".

Of course, the protagonists of Atlas Shrugged had renounced paper money and
started using privately minted gold coins from Midas Mulligan's Bank way back
in 1957.

~~~
losvedir
> _And 5 years before Cryptonomicon there was Tim May's Cyphernomicon (which
> obviously inspired the title and theme of Stephenson's book)._

Actually, no, according to Stephenson. From the appendix of my copy of
_Cryptonomicon_ :

"It has been pointed out that the word "Cryptonomicon" bears obvious
similarities to "Cyphernomicon," which is the title of a Cyperpunk FAQ
document by Tim May. This leads to the question: am I committing some form of
plagiarism, or rendering homage, or what? The answer, strangely enough, is
niether. I was completely unaware of the existence of Tim May's Cyphernomicon
at the time I came up with "Cryptonomicon."

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qengho
I read that too, and I don't want to doubt Stephenson's word, but it's very
hard to believe that he hadn't run across Cyphernomicon or the Cypherpunks
(hell, they were on the cover of Wired Issue #1.02) in researching crypto for
Cryptonomicon. Maybe he forgot he did but the term stuck in his subconscious.
Or maybe he really didn't do even basic research before coming up with the
name?

PS. Yes, I am the commenter previously known as anarky. No idea why that
account got banned after a single comment.

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hatu
I basically only use digital currency right now, and it's just your normal
Euros. I get paid by the company through internet banking and it gets
deposited to my bank account. I pretty much only check my bank information
online. When I pay (99% of the time) with my debit card, the card reader at
the store connects through 3G to the banks server to verify the transaction.
I'll go weeks without even touching paper money / coins. I can't imagine how
to make it more digital than that and this is what basically everyone in
Finland has done for 5+ years

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emhs
The difference here is that the Euros you're working with can't be held
digitally as actual stored value. You can't carry them with you, and they must
at all times be tied to an identity. With true digital currency, you're not
tied to someone else's server for transactions. You can make the exchange in
person, no trusted third party required. Your Euros require a trusted bank to
hold your Euros, and a trusted country issuing them.

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brian_cloutier
Just a small clarification, you can't carry bitcoins with you either.

Bitcoins are not little pieces of information you can hold on a thumb drive,
but an agreement by the network that a certain balance belongs to some
address.

You are absolutely tied to a server for transactions, and there is a trusted
third party required. That third party is the bitcoin network itself. It is
impossible to make a bitcoin transaction while offline because making a
transaction means updating the state of the network, not merely giving
somebody information.

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LancerSykera
Ten years before bitcoin, we had e-gold. And it was good. And now the
government owns it anyway.

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elssar
Though in Cryptonomicon the currency was backed by hidden Japanese and Nazi
gold.

~~~
angersock
Pecunia non olet, meus amicus.

~~~
elssar
Well I didn't mean it in that sense.

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betterunix
Twenty years before Bitcoin, David Chaum was showing us how to make provably
secure digital cash protocols.

