Anonymous money rough idea

Discussion in 'privacy general' started by n33m3rz, Apr 8, 2009.

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  1. n33m3rz

    n33m3rz Registered Member

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    This idea is essentially based on Ecache but I made some minor changes. This is a rough idea, let me know what people think. Maybe we can find someone to program it.

    First of all E-cache had a glaring flaw in that it had only one investor backing it with a very limited amount of gold, and the gold was totally in his possession with no way to verify it. My idea is to replace the single investor with a single trusted "administrator" for lack of a better word, and unlimited potential investors. People would be able to invest in the system by buying Liberty Reserve and depositing it to the central E-cash account. They would be paid interest for their investment, for example let's say to cash out of the system (receive liberty reserve) it costs 5%. So let's say two people invest, one person invests $1,000 and one person invests $2,000. They would send the "administrator" $3,000 of liberty reserve which would be put in the central account, or possibly distributed through out several accounts. I am not certain but I think that you can set lr accounts to be auditable so people can see how much money is in them with just the number. Anyways the "Total E-cash" would be advertised as $3,000 on the website. The people who invested in the E-cash would receive cryptographically signed certificates that could be broken down into smaller bills, mixed, verified and transformed just like Ecache could. AKA they could plug a $1000 certificate into the central system and generate two $500 certificates or whatever. They could also take a $500 certificate and anonymously change it to another $500 certificate, and they could also plug the $500 certificate and see if the system says it is valid, same as E-cache also.

    Anyways they would then be able to set up as E-cash exchangers like someone sends them $25 they break $25 off their $1000 certificate and send it to the customer, the customer can then plug the $25 certificate into the system and get a new $25 certificate that only they know, and the old one will be taken out of the system so they can't double spend. The investor could also use their E-cash certificate to buy products from anyone who accepts it for payment, or they could cash it back out for liberty reserve from the central server. Anyways, when they first invest they will specify an E-currency account number, and when their e-cash is put back into the system they will be credited 5% transaction fee. So if someone invests in $1,000 of E-cash and sells it to 10 people in $100 denominations, when those people exchange the bills back for $100 worth of LR they will only get $95 worth of LR each and the additional $5 will go to the investor, so for each $1,000 someone invests they can expect to eventually make $50 profits for the investment, plus will make their money back by selling the e-cash, plus any additional fee that they sell it for. Also to prevent people from just always buying directly from the central server and to promote people to invest for a profit the minimum investment amount could be set at $1,000 so if someone wants only $300 they would need to buy from an investor who would make a minimum of $15 off the investment.

    The cryptographic certificates make it so someone could easily have anonymous money. Say someone wants to spend money anonymously online and they have $500 cash. they could buy $500 of E-cash from an exchanger and mail them the money or something, then mix the certificate they receive which would 100% break the connection from the E-cash vendor to them plus 100% break the connection from the person they wish to send the money to and them. The receiver could then sell the E-cash back to the central server for $475 of liberty reserve that would be completely anonymous, and the exchanger they used would be credited $25 for their investment into the system. The investors could remain very anonymous as well depending on how they accept payment.

    The actual E-cash service might end up charging something like 1% extra per transaction to make enough money to continue operations, or the people running the E-cash service might just be big investors into the system and make their money that way. It would require people to trust the people running the service, but people already do that with liberty reserve ETC. I think it is a good system, highly based off ecaches system but with multiple investors to counter the problems E-cache had by using only one investor.
     
  2. Fly

    Fly Registered Member

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    From a practical perspective, you might want to consider the legal issues.

    There are laws for 'virtual money', for example, if you open up a Paypal account you initially have limits, which you can lift by providing some information. For more extensive use/extra activities you may need to provide more information. Anti-moneylaundering, anti-terrorist (or whatever) laws.

    I think I read something quite a while ago about an online virtual gold business (e-gold??) that got into trouble.
     
  3. SteveTX

    SteveTX Registered Member

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    My understanding of eCache was that it was supposed to be "every man a mint" sort of system. That means lots and lots of traders. I just don't think it ever took off. So I think your minor change may be exactly what they were hoping for. Either way, digital anonymous currency is coming.
     
  4. n33m3rz

    n33m3rz Registered Member

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    Could probably find a server in some third world country with no real laws =). E-gold was based in USA im surprised they lasted as long as they did.
     
  5. veta

    veta Registered Member

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    the problem with ecache is not its implementation (although I don't think it is a big enough target yet to have been really attacked) it is that it is too hard to get money into the system. If they would make it easier to convert funds to GG's it would probably take off.

    Xerobank's system of funding is probably the right model for getting money anonymously into a closed system. eCache could easily implement such a system if they wanted.

    I think the real problem with all these digital currency to date is that they are based on gold. I understand why that is, it just makes any such system automatically entrenched in the laws and regulations of the "real" world. And you can be sure the "real" world will do everything in its power to slow/hinder the growth of digital currencies...They are the death rattles of the old systems.
     
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