By creating centralized points of trust, you provide profitable points to attack, ...
That's no different from MtGox now. MtGox and other exchanges are profitable points to attack, which is why they have been. However, that doesn't stop exchanges from continuing, with lessons learned and better security.
... either by people who want to steal the bitcoins, or governments or companies like PayPal who might want to damage Bitcoin. Compare to peer-to-peer file sharing, the centralized ones were attacked successfully, the decentralized ones are nearly impossible to stop.
Note that adding BCH's on top of the network doesn't replace the network. The core network and coin options remain, so things are still decentralized and impossible to stop (without shutting down the Internet).
The reason Peter's proposal was more complicated was to reduce the profitability of an attack on any of the Chaum banks - the worst that can happen is that the account holders would not have access to their funds for some period of time, but they are *guaranteed* to get it back.
Having said that, I expect we'll see what you propose in the future when/if Bitcoin becomes very popular, because the majority of people prefer simplicity over security/privacy, and the majority will have come to Bitcoin because it is popular rather than because of any of its inherent advantages.
I too expect we'll see something similar to what I propose in the future. I think the advantages are too great not to. This thread is to see if we should be looking at setting such things up sooner than later, in light of the block size issue, and in order to determine the feasibility.
Off-chain transactions already exist. Places where you deposit bitcoins (such as BTC-TC) do transactions internally without going through the block chain. The block chain is involved only when you deposit or withdraw.
Correct. I agree totally. BTC-e is a great example of users exchanging crypto-currencies amongst each other without using the block chain. I believe that should be expanded.
Bitcoin-based credit cards will do internal transfers without going through the blockchain. It is certainly possible that banks (if they ever deal with bitcoins) might set up a separate clearing house for inter-bank transfers.
I agree.
there are mtgox and bitstamp redeemable codes ... probably also others. please look into that
Yes, I agree. In fact I referred to that in response to someone's reply when I mentioned clearing houses:
...
A rudimentary form of this already exists. See
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Green_addressMt.Gox provides green addresses and a few merchants recognize them (see bottom of the above link). Mt.Gox also conducts an estimated 80% of all bitcoin currency exchange. It probably holds sizable coin storage for the community too.
Mt.Gox could
already act as a Bitcoin Clearing House, in other words. That doesn't mean Bitcoin is centralized.