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Cryptocurrency in Eclipse Phase

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Fri, 2014-02-21 02:07

Libertad

Cryptocurrency in Eclipse Phase

I'm pretty sure that this might have been covered in one of the books, and cryptocurrency was brand new when EP came out, but has the setting delved into the BitCoin equivalents or hinted at them in the setting? I do see similarities between it and Rep system, but cryptocurrencies are still "hard" currency and not based solely upon societal approval. I could see a place like Extropia using a BitCoin-esque system, and not just because the currency has a sizable US Libertarian and AnCap fanbase. :P If anything, cryptocurrencies in real life are sort of Rep-like in that their value widely varies in even a matter of days. BitCoin values have been known to change drastically based upon external events. Additionally, I can see how something like BitCoin could serve as a blueprint for currency in Eclipse Phase where everything is electronic. Thoughts?

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Fri, 2014-02-21 08:06

DrewDavis

Not just Extropia. I'd bet a

Not just Extropia. I'd bet a bitcoin equivalent is in use for most red markets in the outer system. There is very little that Anarchists and AnCaps find offensive enough to ban trade in, but what they do find that offensive they tend to clamp down on hard. A crypto-currency system could help keep some of the more odious red markets running with some amount of secrecy.

Fri, 2014-02-21 19:18

consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture

I've always thought of

I've always thought of credits as crypto-optional currency, in the sense that you can always mask yourself on the mesh as much as possible before making purchases. But it's a good point, there'd be people all over the system that'd be all over currencies that enable you to be as untraceable as possible.

Sat, 2014-02-22 00:02

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Libertad wrote:I'm pretty

Libertad wrote:
I'm pretty sure that this might have been covered in one of the books, and cryptocurrency was brand new when EP came out, but has the setting delved into the BitCoin equivalents or hinted at them in the setting? I do see similarities between it and Rep system, but cryptocurrencies are still "hard" currency and not based solely upon societal approval. I could see a place like Extropia using a BitCoin-esque system, and not just because the currency has a sizable US Libertarian and AnCap fanbase. :P

Some of the properties of cryptocurrency systems lend themselves to use as currency, not just in a pseudnonymous fashion but because they are more distributed in their architectures than a sort-of-centralised banking system like the ones in the Inner System of Eclipse Phase. They would be more amenable to being deployed across a volume of space as large as the solar system, and are based upon mathematical principles that are known to be robust and are well understood (so that new nodes could, in theory, be bootstrapped by a single person if it came down to it). Generation of wallets using deterministic random bit generators ([url=https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet]brainwallets[/url]) mean that someone could take a quantity of accumulated wealth anywhere in the solar system, even via egocast, hook into the local mesh (and any cryptocurrency networks) and have access to funds necessary to operate. Handy if one awakens one day in a storage chamber in an unfamiliar ego bank... Merkle Trees like those used in cryptocurrency implementations also lend themselves to certain forms of data storage. By ponying up a certain amount of cred one could provably write data into the blockchain and anybody who parses it would know beyond a reasonable doubt that such-and-such ego wrote this-and-that at a particular date and time, and it could not be altered without breaking the entire blockchain after that point. Shady operators and Firewall proxies could find lots of uses for such a thing, I think.

Libertad wrote:
Additionally, I can see how something like BitCoin could serve as a blueprint for currency in Eclipse Phase where everything is electronic.

Absolutely. So long as the math holds, entire cashless economies could be set up and run nearly anywhere, and with the right gateway protocols (and agreements) transferred from locale to locale with the act of commerce. The cash is green, as they say...

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Mon, 2014-02-24 22:26

UnitOmega

Crypto-Cred is a thing in the

Crypto-Cred is a thing in the EP setting, as per Panopticon. Credits are tied to your Mesh ID usually, using them anonymously probably requires some hoop-jumping much like using a credit or debit card "anonymously" would these days. You want to do so for sure, you "buy" Crypto-Cred, which in more mechanical terms, functions as a "service" where you exchange Inner System Credit into an amount of completely anonymous Crypto-Cred, for a 10% (both ways) exchange fee. You get it by contacting an anonymous and secure Crypto-Cred server. Details on p. 154 of Panopticon. Quoting p. 39 of Panopticon:

Quote:
If you need to spend credit without linking it to your ID, crypto-cred is your best friend. Cryptocred services are accessible around the solar system, making it easy and convenient to make completely anonymous purchases. Crypto-cred is growing increasingly popular in the inner system; many hypercorps take advantage of these services to make it harder for their competitors to keep tabs on them.

Just note that some societies may not legally or socially approve of using Crypto-Cred. Interestingly, both Closed and Open societies do not care for such a method, though for entirely different reasons.

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Tue, 2014-02-25 13:24

consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture

Wow, somehow I totally missed

Wow, somehow I totally missed this going through Panopticon! Thanks UnitOmega, super helpful!

Mon, 2014-03-10 23:56

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

The existence of crypto cred

The existence of crypto cred is why I surmised the quantum computers in EP could only crack certain types of crypto (e.g. public key) - because if they could crack any type of crypto in a week cryptocurrency wouldn't be feasible.

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"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

Fri, 2014-03-21 17:37

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

NewtonPulsifer wrote:The

NewtonPulsifer wrote:
The existence of crypto cred is why I surmised the quantum computers in EP could only crack certain types of crypto (e.g. public key) - because if they could crack any type of crypto in a week cryptocurrency wouldn't be feasible.

There are cryptosystems which make quantum cryptology infeasible because they exploit mathematical principles that quantum processors, as we understand them are ill suited to work on (i.e., they do not rely upon the discrete log or integer factorization problems). Some of these systems (for example, multivariate polynomials and Merkle trees using Lamport signatures) may lend themselves to the creation of post-quantum cryptocurrency (an interest of mine that, at present, I lack the time to follow upon). I would carefully state that, in the context of the game Eclipse Phase cryptocurrency networks shifted over to such mechanisms early on because quantum computers had advanced to the point in which they became an active threat to those economies. Certain entities within the PC, for example, would have fallen all over themselves for a chance to kill off an economy that they could not control or influence and ensure that their banks were the only viable system that most people could see and would trust as a result.

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Sat, 2014-03-22 01:03

Undocking

The Doctor wrote:

The Doctor wrote:
Some of these systems (for example, multivariate polynomials and Merkle trees using Lamport signatures) may lend themselves to the creation of post-quantum cryptocurrency (an interest of mine that, at present, I lack the time to follow upon).

Multivariate and Lattice are in the running with Hash-signatures (Merkle trees). Code based cryptography, for me at least, is not the best q-resistant option since the poster child (McEliece encryption) is comparatively easy to solve. My favourite are multivariate, because polynomials over finite fields are sexy. Really, the thing that is currently needed for a successful q-resistant cryptography is to be NP-hard or (more favourably) NP-complete. But keep in mind, that it is only a defence against currently known quantum algorithms, mainly Shor's. Future q-resistant cryptography may use different complexity class problems, like EXPTIME-complete or EXPSPACE-complete. I use the Unbalanced Oil and Vinegar (UOV) scheme, or something that references it, for cryptography in games with quantum computing. Keeps my computer scientists happy.