Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

kong.cash

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 395 posts

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#61

Post by jiofih »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #42
advisedwang wrote: post #40

Does this mean someone needs to verify every banknote handed over to them? If not, what's to stop me giving people unloaded notes and them assuming they have face-value?

The imagined usability is like cash. Low denominations notes are glanced at to sure they're intact, high denomination notes are scrutinized more closely. The difference is one can validate these notes with a cryptographic operation rather than a highlighter.

Online validation dissolves you’re anonymity value proposition instantly.

Bank notes are recognized as a financial instrument by the government, and have the accompanying legal repercussions to counterfeiting. I expect no such strictness being applied to a private digital token, what exactly de-incentivized someone from going crazy counterfeiting notes? Especially considering their transactions would be anonymous too?

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#62

Post by krick »

I don't get it. Is it some sort of concept art? What's the point?

Sure, it can be used as money (assuming what authors say is correct). Virtually any physical items that are hard to fake can be used as money, as long as people believe it's worth something. And if we are okay with complicated and rather expensive manufacturing process (since Kong isn't something you find in the forest), it really is a non-problem to create a new "government-independent currency", print it and sell it. Nobody really gives a fuck about that, because money is worthless unless you can spend it. And as long as Costco doesn't accept Kong (or any other made-up currency), it would be hard for you to spend it on anything other than unique hand-crafted chairs or cocaine. And it would be hard for them to start accepting Kong notes, while being a government-compliant entity that pays taxes, as every physical bill they get must be accounted for and put into a cashier machine.

And, by the way, since every Kong bill is unique, it isn't any more anonymous than dollar bills: i.e. pretty much anonymous as long as they change hands without touching real cashier machines or ATMs, which, as it happens, is not so long, because people don't generally exchange unique hand-crafted chairs for cocaine, they buy/sell it, then go to Costco to get some more conventional goods or services.

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#65

Post by Jaxkr »

Have you considered how this will fare in the current regulatory environment? European countries banned Libra because they didn't want it to compete with the Euro and the U.S. showed hostility to pre-crypto complementary currencies.

Have you considered licensing the tech to governments to make counterfeit-proof bills?

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#66

Post by Barrin92 »

I genuine can't tell if this is satire or not. This is like one of these web-framework to desktop and back again pieces of software

Why should anyone buy a crypto currency you can barely use anywhere in physical form if I can just use regular cash?

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#67

Post by Akababa »

The world is moving towards cashless/mobile payments (albeit with the U.S. strangely behind), so why do you feel physical cryptocurrency is a step in the right direction? Do you expect Kong to face greater challenges for adoption (compared to other cryptocurrencies) since it needs a higher critical mass of users?

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#68

Post by paulgerhardt »

GordonS wrote: post #54

So, I'm Scottish, and still often have problems in London (and indeed abroad!) when I hand over a Scottish bank note. Scotland and England are of course both part of the UK, and while, yes, technically Scottish bank notes are not legal tender, they have been defacto legal tender since forever. How do you plan to tackle this mentality, where there is such hostility to anything in the slightest bit unusual?

Embrace it?

Less cheekily, I think Kong like instruments when properly adapted could capture the best parts of local currencies (like the Bristol Pound), the messy parts of multi-governmental currencies (like the Scottish Pound), and the nice bits of computer validation.

In your example specifically, the Royal Bank of Scotland can still mint Scottish Pounds but back them on chain by UK pounds.

I'm of course hand-waiving the problems here - we've made a programmable monetary instrument. One can program things well or badly to support this kind of interoperability.

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#70

Post by nostromo »

Twixes wrote: post #59
ISL wrote: post #53

After I buy a grilled cheese sandwich with Kong, how do I handle my taxes? It makes every transaction have possible capital-gains tax implications. The taxation difficulty is the single biggest reason why I stopped making small transactions with Bitcoin. The paperwork, come April, was awful.

It should be just like normal, non-blockchain backed currency, should it not?

It’s more like selling stock to buy a sandwich.

If you bought the stock for $100, and now it’s worth $200, and you sell $10 worth to buy a sandwich, you have $5 of income to be reported.

Post reply on HN