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Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

kong.cash

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Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#211

Post by tehwebguy »

undersuit wrote: post #207
tehwebguy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but what the hell is a Kong worth at the moment of sale? Unless the price is listed in this particular crypto people will have to do a live conversion to even know what this space cash is even worth. Also, very funny (and accurate) about the $2

A Kong is worth what I think it's worth. If I saw Kongs trading for 1 beer in the morning and some guy insisted that the rate was now 1.45 Kongs a beer in the evening I might object.

Yeah for sure, especially since there apparently aren’t partial Kongs.

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#212

Post by ottolin »

monocasa wrote: post #85
paulgerhardt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bills are intended to be spent hand-to-hand in meatspace with cryptographic validation. See section 2.1 [1] The innovation of Bitcoin was decentralized electronic peer-to-peer cash. Kong does not remove any of those elements and makes the overhead of the peer-to-peer bit easier. Physical cash is still the dominant form of payment. The advancement here is figuring out how to issue physical cash without needing a c…

What does Kong bring to the table that a gold coin does not?

Honestly I dont think it does anything that a gold coin cant do in practical level.

However, a gold coin will remain valid if dropped into water or fire.

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#213

Post by gamblor956 »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #126
toomim wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, why not apply this to an existing coin, like Bitcoin, rather than inventing yet another freaking asset? Oh yeah, because then the founders can't get rich in the ICO. Yuck.

There is no ICO. There is no token sale. Bitcoin script does not give us enough operations to do the validation. Using the EVM was the next best candidate. We're selling an extremely limited number of packs to validate the concept and cover manufacturing costs. Section 4.1 of the paper goes into details of why a purpose built token is more suitable than one designed for other purposes[1]. [1] https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmR…

What you have described is literally an ICO...

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#214

Post by gamblor956 »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #48
akersten wrote: post #43

So once the time lock or whatever expires, I'm free to extract the value from my Kong and then go double-spend the physical bills in a corner store? In the hypothetical world where people use this, how are they expected to validate every note they receive? Is there an equivalent to a starch pen like a suspicious cashier might use on a $100 bill today? Or is the process more painful? Does it require the internet? Reme…

The expiration mechanic is how Swiss Francs work and we believe a necessary tradeoff for decentralized cash issuance to work. Validation can be performed with any smartphone. Notes are issued in blocks so technically if you downloaded the 2019 Kong Registry contract you would not need connectivity to validate a note. Purpose built hardware can also be built or existing android based POS systems updated to support kon…

More importantly: you keep people trapped in your walled garden for several years waiting until they can cash out.

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#215

Post by jakelazaroff »

ccamrobertson wrote: post #2

Hi folks, I’m one of the contributors at Kong — https://kong.cash/ . Kong is a physical cryptocurrency that looks, feels and works like traditional cash. You can think of it as an ultra-secure, time locked cryptocurrency wallet with a fixed face value — no one can access the token except for the holder of the note after a period of several years. It consists of a secure element and NFC chips mounted on a flexible PCB…

This doesn't make any sense. Can only preordained organizations print the notes? Then we’re back to centralized cash. Can anyone print the notes? Then they can also print duplicates. Do we verify electronically when we transact to prevent that? Then we're back to electronic transactions.

What am I missing? How is this not fatally flawed?

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#216

Post by zxcmx »

Jamwinner wrote: post #204
pedalpete wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you expect to get this into the market? And what market do you expect to get this into? Cash has an inherent agreement as to locality. When I'm in Australia, I use Australian dollars, when in the US, they have US dollars. Though you may be solving this problem, I can use Kong everywhere, you need to somehow seed the market. How do you see that happening? As you state, crypto is mostly a store of value atm. The…

I use almost exclusively cash and never get that response. Usually a smile as I sail out of the cashiers way faster than our abrtion of a chip+pin system customers possibly could. What part of the world are you in?

Much of the world has contactless payment (no pin, no physical card insertion).

It is more or less instant. Common in .au, .nz at least.

I'm actually noticing some cultural changes as a result of this, cash is starting to seem "dirty" since you often have to touch other people's hands to exchange it.

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#218

Post by rytill »

kickscondor wrote: post #177
paulgerhardt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Lol "it's programmable celery. It's cooler than non-programmable celery."

I mean... would that not be cooler?

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#219

Post by manigandham »

paulgerhardt wrote: post #163
whb07 wrote: post #135

Earlier 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…

That’s why we have physical cash.

It already has all the benefits of physical crypto with less headache.

Re: Show HN: Kong – Physical Cryptocurrency

#220

Post by [deleted] »

darawk wrote: post #146
james_s_tayler wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is how to make a sound cash instrument backed by cryptocurrencies. It matters because cash is the dominant form of payment worldwide In what way is cash failing that it needs to be replaced by your type of cash? The "it's decentralized and doesn't rely on a state level actor" argument has been thoroughly lost at this point.

Cash is controlled by a central authority. Governments can print as much or as little of it as they want. Kong does not have this property.

[deleted]
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