One of the best things about Bitcoin is that it’s not physical. If you want a physical currency that can’t be printed, use gold bullion.
Maybe silver? I mean even a tiny 1/10 oz gold coin is worth $140
Mate, you got got.
Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
161–170 of 395 posts
Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
#162I hate crypto currency and I love this. It's a way to project all the insanely bad parts of crypto (if you hold it you own it) into the physical world. If general btc/eth transactions are a very very complex version of SWIFT this is the same for paper money. I can buy coke with my bitcoins but I can't do a cool in person coke buy with bitcoins(and/or ETH). Kong solves my problem.
Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't buy the argument that it's "turtles all the way down". Trust begins and ends at the chip level. I think its possible to make an open root of trust chip better than any solution on the market available today. I think the chips available on the market today are good enough for this specific application but not others.
The point of this I thought is to unify the virtual system with a physical product, in the pretty cash. So it isn’t just the chip now, is it? Otherwise why not just... use a hardware wallet and use bitcoin ? I do agree that people can’t picture or visualize in their mind a “bitcoin”, and so this solves that part. But then you’re left with the, how do people print this tangible pretty currency part.
The point is physical cash is really important to a functioning society.
Cryptocurrencies are turning out to be really important but lack a physical cash instrument.
Kong marries the two.
Kong accomplishes that by minimizing trust down to the chip level - as opposed to the firmware or application level - so we can make these things trustlessly and cost effectively. Something like a Trezor is too expensive and dear to be treated like physical cash.
Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
#164I see so many people here frustrated with the fact that the creators are giving nonsense answers. It's important to remember that this is a money-making scam. Asking them how their technology provides any value to users is like asking a Nigerian prince about the philosophy behind constitutional monarchies.
It is a particularly strong scam in the crypto space. I'm very impressed with the innovation in their area.
Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
#165I 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 c…
Kong has the useful property of peer-to-peer validation. Most paper currencies printed in your basement don't. Tokens loaded onto Kong Cash instruments and exchanged ephemerally in person between party A and party B are more anonymous than tokens sent directly from party A to party B electronically which will be recorded for everyone to see forever. It's programmable money. It's cooler than non-programmable money. We…
This is either some of the best satire in the world or I still don't get it. Probably the latter.
Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
#166Poe's Law is a hell of a thing... Is this for real?
I'm with you. The satire signals are so strong here.
Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
#167All the downsides of cryptocurrency and paper money rolled into a banknote that can be break. Imagine if a large bill could become worthless since a little chip inside got hit by a stray cosmic ray.
Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
#168I see so many people here frustrated with the fact that the creators are giving nonsense answers. It's important to remember that this is a money-making scam. Asking them how their technology provides any value to users is like asking a Nigerian prince about the philosophy behind constitutional monarchies.
Usually I would agree with you but this is an intriguing concept. They explicitly state in the white paper that this is an experiment, so treat it as such. All I’m hearing is a lot of “contempt prior to investigation”.
Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
#169From the whitepaper: "Kong notes do not use a secure element that allows for general programmability." Looks like they thought this through more than a typical drive-by 'blockchain' project. With a limited secure circuit you'll be able to call functions that generate ECDSA key pairs on the card but without exposing an interface to retrieve the private key. Without this basic property you would have to fully trust that the issuer had not mass-extracted private keys (similar to how early privacy coins had a trusted setup phase.)
Looks like they're also trying to structure this as 'reward cost for key extraction vs cost of mounting attacks' showing they have a plan in place for attacks. I'd argue the notes still have a tx cost though because the only way to know if a note has a valid private key is to challenge it with a unique, large, random number - which takes time and effort. Users of the notes will need an app for that and have to check every note against an on-chain 'smart contract' before accepting them? NFC might make some of that easier but there are still usability issues there.
Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point of this I thought is to unify the virtual system with a physical product, in the pretty cash. So it isn’t just the chip now, is it? Otherwise why not just... use a hardware wallet and use bitcoin ? I do agree that people can’t picture or visualize in their mind a “bitcoin”, and so this solves that part. But then you’re left with the, how do people print this tangible pretty currency part.
The point is physical cash is really important to a functioning society. Cryptocurrencies are turning out to be really important but lack a physical cash instrument. Kong marries the two. Kong accomplishes that by minimizing trust down to the chip level - as opposed to the firmware or application level - so we can make these things trustlessly and cost effectively. Something like a Trezor is too expensive and dear to…
So kind of like how Samsung and HTC are starting to integrate hardware wallets into the phones?
Couldn’t you imagine a world where this starts trending cheaper and cheaper and soon becomes a commodity ?