Is It Finally Time to Embrace E-Money?

因此，没有电子商务的互联网是互联网，没有电子商务 - 没有在线购物和银行和图书，音乐和应用程序。交易可能不会毫无摩擦，但效率是不可否认的。然而，从未开发过互联网先驱内容的一个基本金融成分。该组件是虚拟资金，互联网相当于硬币和货币。一家名为Digicash的公司在20世纪90年代开发了这样的系统并商标了它的名称，电子现金。其他人来到以后，名称像枪，薄荷，明星和flooz。没有飞。相反，今天的主导的在线支付方法是传统银行业和产品的类似物，主要是信用和借记卡，他们的复杂费用嵌入着定价，并由商人和消费者承担。流行的PayPal“即时传输”系统建在银行借记模型上，同时也具有提取的费用。软件能够支付账单和人员付款，虽然可以是自动检查或交易账户活动，或者避免进入ATM的需要。 Now there are signs that digital cash may finally have its day. A community of Internet activists — on the order of Anonymous or Occupy Wall Street, but aiming for a potential commercial benefit — is awakening to payment system economics and getting behind a virtual cash alternative known as Bitcoin. True Internet cash would have all the characteristics of, say, the coins or bills one uses to pay for the morning paper or the £20 note given to a friend to repay last night’s bar tab. In terms of speed and convenience, no payment method is more seamless than cash. No one takes a discount or commission; exchanges are at par value and anonymous. E-cash, developed by computer scientist and DigiCash founder David Chaum, emulated physical coins. Represented as bits on a computer, transferable into bank accounts or onto the chips of smart cards, the coins could be exchanged for goods and services. Cryptographic codes secured and accounted for the money movements, which were captured in an audit trail. But Chaum insisted that the transactions be as private and anonymous as those done with physical cash. E-cash was seen as particularly well suited to micropayments: small-denomination purchases of documents, articles or songs that might not be practical for the credit card networks. The improved economics of credit and debit cards and the market power of the banking industry overwhelmed E-cash, despite Chaum’s efforts to enlist major banks to issue his coins and central banks to oversee and legitimize them. Three years ago a technologist using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin. Described as a “crypto-currency,” it has E-cash-like features, but it is open source, decentralized and designed to grow virally. Bitcoin’s proponents are mistrustful of fiat currency and thus steer clear of official connections like those Chaum sought. Bank involvement would violate the confidentiality ethic, observes Jon Matonis, a former Visa executive who is now acybermoney consultant and blogger。他说比特币回答了对“无现金社会的愿望”，以期可以选择交易隐私。“由各种商家接受，其中许多也可能在eBay上找到，比特币可转换为交易所的现实货币。在3月日，举行了6,000次交易;流通中的860万硬币每人约5美元。监管机构，对非法交易潜力感到不安，他们的眼睛对比特币。基于伦敦的比特币交易所Intersango的首席执行官Donald Norman正试图谈判一个监管机构和货币运动的自由人员的监督水平。诺曼承认，非法的药物交易可以在比特币上进行，因为他们可以在任何地方，但是说大规模的洗钱不能。加入MATONIS，“洗钱的世界上最大的系统是100美元的钞票。”比特币已经“证明了它的弹性，”马隆斯说，尽管有“速度颠簸”，但尤其是2011年6月黑客进入最大的比特币交换，Mt。 Gox. That incident吸引了更多的媒体关注比Bitcoin could have paid for甚至激发了CBS电视剧的故事线，善良的妻子。

The quest may not end with Bitcoin. Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer science professor Ronald Rivest, who co-founded Peppercoin, calls Bitcoin “the most interesting e-money venture” but notes that it “has some issues.” At the least, says E-cash inventor Chaum, it “indicates there is room for something to emerge.” • •

Jeffrey Kutler is editor-in-chief of Risk Professional magazine, published by the Global Association of Risk Professionals.