From: "Jerry Feldman" To: nh-isig@blu.org Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 07:07:34 -0400 Subject: New Hampshire INTERNET SIG Meeting, Tuesday, 6/2/98 When: Tuesday June 2, 1997, 6:30 PM Where: Nashua, NH Public Library, 2 Court St, Nashua, NH. Featuring: Robert Hettinga, founder of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston. Topic: Digital Bearer Transaction Settlement Almost every non-cash transaction you make, in the net or in meatspace, is executed, cleared, and settled using offsetting debits and credits sent between the buyer, the seller, and a whole bunch of financial intermediaries. Even if executed over the internet, all of them are settled and cleared over a proprietary network of some kind. Almost $10 billion in credit card purchases are done on the net annually, and probably $100 billion, total, is executed on the net one way or another and settled in meatspace. Remember that a credit card transaction on the net just executes the trade. Money doesn't completely change hands until up to 90 days after you get your bill. To give you some comparison, $4 trillion a *day* is executed, cleared, and settled in the proprietary-networked foreign exchange markets. This wasn't how it was done before, of course. In the (very) old days, you and I showed up in front of a buttonwood tree on Wall Street, I gave you cash, and you gave me a bearer certificate representing a piece of a company's stock or a bond issue. The trade was executed, cleared, and settled all at once. Oddly enough, using financial cryptography, you will be able to do exactly that, that is, anonymous, instantaneous bearer transactions in digital form, on the the public internet, and some day very soon. The reason you'll do it that way is that it'll be 1000 times cheaper than the "book-entry" way we clear and settle trades now, and not just because it'll be the fastest and most private way to buy and sell things. Robert Hettinga, founder of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, the International Conference on Financial Cryptography, the International Financial Cryptography Association, and, recently, Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism, will talk about all the interesting things you can do in a world of digital bearer settlement. Things like personal bond issues instead of consumer debt, digital cash instead of credit/debit cards and checks, digital bearer stock and mutual fund shares, or bonds, or any derivative therof. In transactions from cash-on-the-routerhead internet packet tolls to instanteneous gigabuck foreign exchange settlement and macrobonds for macroprojects. All anonymously, and all with more protection against fraud and theft than we have now. Because of book entry settlement, we also have book entry taxes (on income, sales, and capital gains), book entry regulation (pretty much any regulation with a financial component, meaning all of them ;-)), and book entry marketing (database marketing). So, just like it did when telegraph made bearer transaction execution obsolete, the world is going to change when financial cryptography makes book-entry execution, clearing, and settlement obsolete. A brave new world, indeed. See how brave you are on June 2nd. Robert Hettinga e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Everyone Welcome, No Memberships or Fees to attend! For more information contact Ken Adams Or Jerry Feldman Mailing list: nh-isig@blu.org To subscribe, send email to:nh-isig-request@blu.org. In the BODY of the message, just include the word, subscribe. Check out the newly updated nh-isig web pages including the new tech support and discussion areas. Directions to the Nashua Public Library (Plenty of free parking after 5PM) map: http://www.nh-isig.org/gifs/map.jpg Jerry Feldman New Hampshire Internet SIG Meeting Coordinator http://www.nh-isig.org http://gaf.ne.mediaone.net