Quote from: SlipperySlope on September 04, 2014, 04:13:58 PM

I wonder if you have a point with Ecuador. Suppose, in some possible world differing greatly from reported plans, that Ecuador's Central Bank clones Bitcoin Core and modifies it slightly so that the Central Bank is the sole mint which can mine the digital currency. Furthermore, in this possible world, Ecuador retires its dependence on the US dollar and mandates the new digital currency as legal tender.

I don't know what Ecuador intends to do actually. perhaps they don't know either.

If I had to guess, it would probably be just that: a system for e-payments using some cryptocurrency techniques, with a currency controlled and backed by their Central Bank, perhaps pegged to the dollar, perhaps not, for use by their citizens.

It is possible that it was not even their idea; rather, the bill may have been pu$hed trough congress by some company who expects to be contracted to implement the system. This is often how the governments around here come up with technically innovative projects.

For example, here in Brazil the government recently spent a lot of money on a project to give useless toy-like laptops to K12 students (pushed by Intel, whose CEO visited Brazil for the purpose) and on another project to replace the paper ID cards by smartcards (apparently pushed by the same company that provided the smartcards for the Great UK ID-card fiasco).

With my triple-layer tinfoil hat on, I would even guess is that the future EcuadorCoin is none other than brock Pierce's Realcoin (that is supposed to be pegged to the US dollar, which is Ecuador's official currency at present).