Quote from: Nagle on June 27, 2011, 04:33:37 AM

Actually, it's the third or fourth [of its kind]. Digital era predecessors in pseudo-currencies include Beenz, DigiCash, and frequent flyer miles. Going back further in history, look into how the house of Thurn und Taxis got rich after inventing postage stamps. (They also built and ran the postal system).

The main new thing about Bitcoin is the generation mechanism. DigiCash was equally anonymous, and had a comparable anti-double-spending mechanism. But it used a central "bank" to keep the transaction list.

I can tell, at this point, that you didn't read the article I suggested to you. Not nice. And yet you prattle on. Frequent flyer miles are a predecessor to bitcoin?!

Quote from: Nagle on June 27, 2011, 04:33:37 AM

It's also an illusion that Bitcoin isn't centralized. Some of the policy, such as transaction costs, is embedded in the client. The constants that drive the coin generation rate were set centrally at launch, and are embedded in the early coins. Those locked-in policies favored early adopters and set a ceiling on the number of Bitcoins which is not that far away.

Here you seem confused as to what "decentralized" means. The policies and protocols coded into software do not make the it centralized (or otherwise).

I'm particularly disappointed that you ignored my point about the morality of the current money system, which you seem to be defending. You are on the wrong side of history. Your Dun and Bradstreet world is immoral. You need to come clean of it.