[tor-talk] Gmail and Bitcoin? [OT]

[Mike Hearn]

> I like the idea of using transaction fees as proof of sacrifice because
> they are randomly assigned to miners. The nym authority could just watch
> the transactions and would have no economic stake.

I don't think you even need a nym authority. All the proof of
sacrifice you need can be represented in a single data structure, like
a file. Think of the proof as a certificate. Then you could come up
with a simple set of HTTP extensions so browsers can sign a nonce
using the same keys used to sign the all-fee transactions.

> Here is another variant on this idea. You have a non-profit nym authority
> that takes payments and then redistributes these payments. Redistribution
> could be (certifiably) random, to the bitcoin addresses of known
> non-profits, or you could burn the bitcoins by sending them to an address
> with (certifiably) no private key.

Sending to non profits raises the question of which non-profits are
"good". Miners are politically neutral and virtually guaranteed to
spread the money out uniformly. Burning coins, please don't. It
reduces the resolution of the system for everyone else. I think
sending coins to miners is the simplest approach - it doesn't have any
messy political issues around who gets the coins, the coins are
guaranteed to be received by interested parties, and it doesn't hurt
the Bitcoin system. Actually it helps.