

The Electronic Money Myth - lupin_sansei
http://www.mises.org/story/453

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BrandonM
I think the author contradicts himself just a little bit. On one hand, he
points out that paper money was able to gain value due to its roots in gold.
Later down, he ignores the idea that electronic money could initially be
backed by paper money before that necessity eventually goes away as people
gain more confidence in electronic money.

I do agree that it would be hard to create a new form of currency that is
backed by nothing but faith, but with a universally-accepted currency as a
foundation, I think a private currency could be possible.

Unfortunately, the problem of assuring people that it is impossible for
someone to just "create" the currency is very difficult. With paper money,
various tactics are employed to prevent counterfeiting, but it still happens.
With digital currency, this problem would be multiplied. The solution would
likely involve ensuring that the entire process is very transparent to those
using the currency.

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Hexayurt
<http://e-gold.com>

Quite real, I spent about a year being paid primarily in e-gold in the late
1990s as an experiment, and it was pretty cool. You can argue, of course, that
in this instance the __gold __in the vaults is the money, and that it is not
electronic, and you'd be right.

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chaostheory
hasn't "electronic" money been here for years already? instead of being stored
in a credit card chip, it's stored on Visa/MC's servers...

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maurycy
Oho. Go ahead and submit some links about Fed's conspiracy.

