

Digital Currencies, Crypto-finance and Open Source (beyond Bitcoin) - bobds
http://disattention.com/78/digital-currencies-crypto-finance-and-open-source/

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Astrohacker
This is a nice list; I haven't heard of most of these before. I was wondering,
due to all the recent press about bitcoin, if there are any competing
currencies for bitcoin, and this article helps answer that question. However,
all of the resources listed seem to solve different problems than bitcoin.
Several of them enable the user to create their own currency rather than
provide a single new one. None of the systems/protocols/programs listed have
all of the following features that bitcoin has:

1) Decentralized and solves the double-spending problem without a central
server

2) Automatic and controlled production of new coins

3) The rules are governed by the software running on a majority of the
computing power, and thus the rules can change if the majority of the software
changes

So bitcoin is unique, but there these other tools may be complementary to
bitcoin.

~~~
narrator
4) you can backup your money and make it mathematically impossible to
confiscate via encrypted wallets.

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bobds
If you'll allow me to pull a quote from the article, I think it would be
interesting to discuss. Satoshi said this in the thread where he was
introducting Bitcoin at the Cryptography mailing list:

"I actually did this kind of backwards. I had to write all the code before I
could convince myself that I could solve every problem, then I wrote the
paper. I think I will be able to release the code sooner than I could write a
detailed spec."

[http://www.mail-
archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg099...](http://www.mail-
archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09980.html)

By the way, if you only want to look at one or two projects, Open Transactions
and Ripple are the most interesting imho.

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orblivion
Liberty Dollar is listed under "failed". As far as I've ever heard, it was
just a private currency based on gold and silver, not a cryptocurrency or
anything similar.

~~~
bobds
I remember they were planning some sort of digital currency but it seems I've
confused it with Liberty Reserve. I first got involved with e-gold and other
digital currencies 6-7 years ago and with so many of them coming and going, I
guess my memory is a little hazy on the area.

Good catch.

~~~
bdhe
Wasn't it shut down by the F.B.I.? It be instructive to see if something
similar can happen to a crypto-currency. Maybe it is not directly relevant,
but still useful to keep around in the wiki.

~~~
orblivion
Not if it's distributed.

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dublinclontarf
Nice list.fairly accurate summaries.

