Christine Lemmer-Webber
@gargron Stamps were left ambiguous so that proof-of-work was one option, but I think it's less interesting than the "tradeable" stamps, and it turns out that pretty much everyone at APConf agreed that the PoW version isn't as interesting as the tradeable "getting paid" version, so let me unpack how "untradeable stamps" works.
By the end of explaining the plan I really like @lain seemed convinced, so I'll explain in this thread and ask lain to clarify if I missed anything so far.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@gargron Ok, so first of all, no blockchain or PoW for tradeable-stamps required. Instead, we move to the idea that anyone, or any community, can establish a "live" fiat ~currency like token system. Literally, anyone can make it, and how much "value" it has is up to the users. From chuck-e-cheese tokens to porn cams, lots of sites / places have these kinds of "not really money but kinda" tokens, and so do games like WoW and etc.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@gargron Let's ignore exactly how it works but just accept a few facts:
- anyone can make them
- they can be very local or very global
- people decide how much value they have
- they can be traded, bought, sold
- the entity in charge of them is responsible for how much they inflate them by issuing them
- they are NOT on a blockchain, though if someone chooses to back them by a blockchain (the way US dollars used to be redeemable for gold) they can, but it's not strictly necessary
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@gargron @lain So how to build it? Two paths: the ocap folks demonstrated you can make "money" basically from ocaps alone (see "simple money" on http://erights.org/elib/capability/ode/ode-capabilities.html )
But, that doesn't provide all the properties we want, even though it is easy to make and issue them.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@gargron @lain So what should "tradeable stamps" be? What about Digicash? GNU Taler is a FOSS implementation (not sure if it's the one you want, but it is one), and it's actually an old design, but it was patented and heavily litigated. Well, the patents have expired now, and it has some good ideas:
- You withdraw tokens
- Once you withdraw them, the server doesn't know which ones you have
- You get receipts for transactions
- Buying is anonymous
- But selling is not!
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@gargron @lain So those last two (buying is anonymous but selling is not) are highly interesting. You *could* set up the Digicash ~bank to operate in an anonymous manner, it's kind of a choice (I won't explain that fully here), but that means two paths open up:
- "legit, by the books" currencies which actually are fully taxable
- more IOU-like per-community tradeable token systems (which, of course people will trade for real money, but...)
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@gargron @lain Anyway, NO blockchain involved, NO proof of work necessary. Transaction times are small and fast. It does mean "trusting" the digicash bank, but that's why it's important to have an open market and let anyone trade the stamps; eventually, some reasonably well trusted stamp providers will emerge.
And... this lets us open up a path towards an alternative to Facebook Libra and Weechat that's actually respectful of user freedoms and individual autonomy.
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@gargron @lain why did I say "untradeable stamps", obviously I meant tradeable
Christine Lemmer-Webber
@gargron @lain I honestly wonder how hard GNU Taler would be to hook into the fediverse as a quick proof-of-concept. No idea... I've run the demo but admittedly never looked at how it worked.
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