Toward a Private Digital Economy

Architecture and Background

Wavyhill and Andre Goldman,Toward a Private Digital Economy (Trusted Transactions In An Anonymous World) Current financial privacy tools have drawbacks arising from centralized ownership and control, and the limitations of the service-for-profit model. A better approach is to construct a fully distributed environment for economic activity which mimics in freedom and variety of action the way cash is used in the physical world.The key to this variety is the element of locale.

Vulnerability Analysis

We introduce the "Farmer's Market" model of anonymous commerce and refine it to a software functional description. We explore some exotic kinds of business viable in this new environment and ways to connect them to the transparent banking world.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

Number theory can be used to derive an "algebra of trust", exploited in practical ways to reduce risk in anonymous transactions, and overcome barriers to adoption of this and other digital cash systems. We also discuss the boot-strapping problem and suggest some ways to address it.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

Afterward, everyone is invited to participate in a role-playing simulation experiment to test the viability of these ideas using a prototype graphical software environment Wavyhill is a software engineer having a 25 year history with industrial research organizations and developers of operating system, video, and graphics products. An anarcho-capitalist without portfolio and advocate of privacy and anonymity, he has also done experimental engineering work on artificial islands. He has no academic credentials that he will admit to. Andre Goldman writes on law and philosophy. He works in the area of non-jurisdictional law, and was the primary author of The Common Economic Protocols.