[e-gold-list] Re: What a Sham

[Sullivan-Garner at Safe-mail.net]

From: Thomas Leavitt <thomas at thomasleavitt.org>
Date: April 28, 2007 1:21:26 AM PDT
To: another list
Subject: E-Gold Indicted for Money Laundering, Illegal Money Transmitting

You know, the irony here is that the Feds operate an institution  
which meets all the criteria mentioned... popular with criminals,  
kiddie porn peddlers, investment scammers, drug dealers, etc. and  
whose product provides (without extensive forensic assistance)  
complete transactional anonymity to buyer and seller. It's popularity  
in these circles, and the liabilities associated with it, are widely  
known.

It's known as the U.S. Mint, and the product is cash. Benjamins.

The Feds are stating here, loud and clear, that while they devoutly  
wish cash would just disappear, they're willing to take second best,  
and makes sure that no digital equivalent of it emerges.

Good luck. I'm pretty sure that, even with my relatively limited  
programming skills, I could create a completely anonymous digital  
cash system with enough effort. I'm sure that others could build such  
a thing inside of a year (at most). All cash is, at this point, is a  
credible assertion that the instrument in hand can be exchanged  
tomorrow for a reasonably equivalent amount of goods and services.  
The mistake, if made, that these guys made, was to require any kind  
of centralized registration/authentication system whatsoever. They  
should have just minted cash, and sent it out into the wild blue  
yonder for whatever they could get. Get enough people participating,  
and the value of the stuff will rapidly become clear. If I've got  
digital cash in my virtual clip, and a reasonable assurance that I  
can exchange it for something of value fairly promptly, then I don't  
care where it was before it came to me, or where it goes after it  
leaves my hand.

Digital cash is inevitable, and the feds can't do anything to really  
stop it, since it involves nothing more than the free and voluntary  
exchange of arbitrary units of value... in a funny way, this bust  
might actually finally prompt the creation of a real digital cash  
system.

Design the system right, and you don't even need to restrict yourself  
to having one mint... I think with the right system, you could  
literally let anyone create digital cash, without it being funny  
money or inflationary... no one is going to buy digital cash from you  
without an assurance that it can be exchanged for other units of  
value... anyway: the point is, much as the Feds would like to shove  
the rabbit back in the hat, the fact is that it has already escaped.  
They just haven't noticed it yet.

Regards,
Thomas Leavitt



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