> Your key serves as proof you own something and nobody else without your key can claim to it.
Yes, and what maps that to your physical identity? How is that any different from showing someone a public key you just generated with GPG?
For what it’s worth, I recently read Moxie Marlinspike’s essay on web3, and I think he crystallised one of the most interesting insights I’ve ever heard on that topic:
> We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure. This means architecture that anticipates and accepts the inevitable outcome of relatively centralized client/server relationships, but uses cryptography (rather than infrastructure) to distribute trust.
I think he’s correct, and the cryptocurrency of the future – the one which actually takes off as a medium of exchange – will do exactly what we’re arguing about here. It will use purely cryptography as its mechanism, instead of large groups of servers acting as the gatekeeper. You’ll be able to send money to someone with purely a public key, no servers required, just you and them as peer-to-peer. And, as a corollary, you’ll be able to prove your balance with only a key and the encrypted data of your past transactions. I’ve barely stopped thinking about my envisioned implementation for the past couple of weeks.
Yes, and what maps that to your physical identity? How is that any different from showing someone a public key you just generated with GPG?
For what it’s worth, I recently read Moxie Marlinspike’s essay on web3, and I think he crystallised one of the most interesting insights I’ve ever heard on that topic:
> We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure. This means architecture that anticipates and accepts the inevitable outcome of relatively centralized client/server relationships, but uses cryptography (rather than infrastructure) to distribute trust.
I think he’s correct, and the cryptocurrency of the future – the one which actually takes off as a medium of exchange – will do exactly what we’re arguing about here. It will use purely cryptography as its mechanism, instead of large groups of servers acting as the gatekeeper. You’ll be able to send money to someone with purely a public key, no servers required, just you and them as peer-to-peer. And, as a corollary, you’ll be able to prove your balance with only a key and the encrypted data of your past transactions. I’ve barely stopped thinking about my envisioned implementation for the past couple of weeks.