Quote from: smooth on April 23, 2016, 08:17:41 AM

it will not be a higher order tier, it will be regular, ordinary main-chain Bitcoin transactions in which the amounts payable to each output are obscured (mathematically verifiable, but not visible in plaintext

Nothing is "mathematically verifiable" except in theory.

Blockchains are not theory, they are practice.

That means they have to use technology that portends to implement theory but does not guarantee it. And even if they could guarantee it there's no way for an end user to ever know conclusively that they've got their hands on an authentic instance of that technology (except of course "in theory" Wink

).

So for unbacked monerary tokens no blockchain is "verifiable" by anything other than mass visual inspection on an ongoing basis of every single address by the fare paying public, independently of whether they happen to be holders of private keys or not. It's the sociological endorsement that emerges from that shared consensus that supports the value, not "math".

And if CT is ever implemented for bitcoin itself then bitcoin will no longer be a tier 1 asset and no longer constitute viable money. (At least not in any sociological sense that could support its value).

Just for clarification, by "monetary tier", I meant this: If I use my bike as "money" to pay for something then the bike is the tier 1 money and the contract that says someone owns it is the tier 2 asset. The tier 2 asset can be obscured, burned, washed through the washing machine, without compromising the integrity or value of the tier 1 asset.

In crypto, obscured blockchains (such as CT) potentially have the job of record keeping and obscuring the ownership of a tier 1 asset (bitcoin). But they are not tier 1 assets in their own right (by virtue of being obscured).