True digital cash as an enabling mechanism for electronic commerce depends upon the marriage of economics and cryptography … I refer to this new sub-discipline as cryptonomics. The Internet is a new world and a new world demands a new currency – a new standard of value. As an enabling mechanism for social change, digital cash has vast implications for macro-economics in the area of a government’s money monopoly and taxing authority, just to name a few. In light of the growing attacks on individual privacy both in the United States and abroad, there has never been a more important time to emphasize the concepts behind the vigilant protection of total financial and monetary privacy. It is money, the lifeblood of any economy, that ultimately symbolizes what commercial structure, and hence what political structure, humans operate within.
Predictor: Matonis, Jon W.
Prediction, in context:In a research presentation titled “Digital Cash and Monetary Freedom,” presented at the Internet Society’s INET ’95 June 27-30 in Honolulu, Hawaii, Jon W. Matonis, the founding director of Private Payment Systems, a research organization for private currencies on the Internet, lays out his proposal for a new international monetary system, saying: ”True digital cash as an enabling mechanism for electronic commerce depends upon the marriage of economics and cryptography. Independent academic advancement in either discipline alone will not facilitate what is needed for electronic commerce to flourish. There must be a synergy between the field of economics which emphasizes that the market will dictate the best monetary unit of value and cryptography which enhances individual privacy and security to the point of choosing between several monetary providers. I refer to this new sub-discipline as cryptonomics. The Internet is a new world and a new world demands a new currency – a new standard of value. As an enabling mechanism for social change, digital cash has vast implications for macro-economics in the area of a government’s money monopoly and taxing authority, just to name a few. In light of the growing attacks on individual privacy both in the United States and abroad, there has never been a more important time to emphasize the concepts behind the vigilant protection of total financial and monetary privacy. It is money, the lifeblood of any economy, that ultimately symbolizes what commercial structure, and hence what political structure, humans operate within.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: E-cash
Name of publication: ISOC INET '95 (conference)
Title, headline, chapter name: Digital Cash and Monetary Freedom
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.isoc.org/HMP/PAPER/136/html/paper.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney