Either you can use the internet than you don't need that note.
You need internet to actually verify and take ownership of the value of it.
It only helps if the giver doesn't have internet.
And sure it's easier to smuggle this one note over a border than a suitcase bout you could smuggle actually anything with an offline wallet in it like USB stick, CD etc.
First the company. The fact that startups have realised a future of
cash involving different hybrid physical technologies is important.
Activity in this space shows that people take cash and its unique
social properties seriously and will invest in it.
Secondly, the advance in cash technologies generally. Super thin
"smart textiles" open up a new world for cash. If you think about it
the technology that already goes into bank notes is amazing, but it's
mostly aimed at anti-counterfeit. We had a brainstorm over here to few
months ago to talk about hybrid physical cash. Ideas like using e-ink
to display the current stored value, "paper" notes that could be
debited, zero knowledge proofs to show the bearer has funds and title
while both parties remain anonymous, ways to turn GNU Taler into
hybrid cash, "contactless cash"... and much more.
Lastly, while I am not a fan of Bitcoin for environmental reasons, I
think that visible/tangible forms of cryptocurrency are an important
piece of the jigsaw in bringing widespread acceptance and usage of
next generation cryptocurrencies, because they have important social
implications for freedom and democracy.
As it is, it may not be a success (the phone verification is already a
show-stopper for me precisely because I want digital cash that works
independently of smartphones) - but first movers lay the groundwork
for the future, so I'll be watching this.
I'm not sure if your first point is a necessity for other perhaps good ideas.
They will either not make those notes or only do one batch due to it just being a novelty in it's current state.
For me it feels like 'blind entrepreneur + we want to ship + we need to ship for more funding'.
I would even like to support weird ideas if it wouldn't promote Bitcoin usage :-(
I think your second point is more interesting: why do you think this digital to analog transition will be a thing?
Even in Zimbabwe they already have 50% smartphones and those are only getting cheaper and cheaper and will continue to flood the market.
My future imagines a smartphone only world for everything. From money, to house and car key. Germany now allows your passport or driver license on your phone.
I think it will be much more interesting how we can make smartphone theft obsolete and phone recovery easy. Like how do I regain my phone's state when I loose it while traveling.
> I think your second point is more interesting: why do you think this
digital to analog transition will be a thing?
It's not digital to analogue so much as changing forms of digital
technology. Digital technology can exist in many different ways. For
example bus tickets in Budapest used a matrix of holes punched out of
paper a grid because a brilliant Hungarian mathematician worked out a
way to make digital combinations in rows and columns allow multiple
journeys but allow an inspector to see if the passenger had punched
their ticket by adding the holes in some row and column. Like a
primitive QR code that's a digital technology.
A single function "digital banknote" that uses practically zero-cost
static patterning would hopefully operate much like a paper note, with
added anti-counterfeit benefits; I could put it in drawer for 10
years, pass it to a friend as a gift, no batteries to charge, no
network to go down, no virus or malware to corrupt it, no remote
kill-switch built in by MegaGigaCom.
I am not sure the alternative (traditional banking) is so co2 neutral. As far as I know they all have plenty of huge buildings with hundreds of people wasting their time & resources working for them.
Don't get me wrong I am sure bitcoin is worse in terms of power usage, but not every crypto is automatically worse than what we have right now.
You can see it as an idiotic PoW for all those people working in those banks.
It's easy to make it renewable with benefits to us. The solar panel on a bank building is giving energy to people.
And I'm not saying that the current banking system is perfect (it actually optimizes itself quite well) but it has much more features while Bitcoin/crypto doesn't have real solutions for huge issues.
Fraud, scams, money laundry, investment tools, sepa, bank account recovery, global market regulations, sanctions Support etc.
And it does all of that with billions and billions of assets.
While Bitcoin consumes energy.
In an utopian society we don't need banks and no PoW crypto but that's not what is critical now.
Besides aluminum smelter, due to high energy costs there are other critical industry affected as well: paper making and glass making. Bottles for example.
Decirculating old currencies can either happen intentionally or unintentionally.
Intentionally decirculating old currencies is called demurrage. Think Swiss bank notes. They tend to recall old notes every 30 years when they issue a new generation of notes. They are currently on generation nine and just recalled generation eight. Bitcoin Note is on generation one.
While it is somewhat common in centralized printed currencies like the franc or the pound it is an important feature of decentralized printed currencies to help dirciculate old notes as there is no central mechanism to cull old notes. One wants to put economic pressure to dicirculate old notes for a variety of reasons but perhaps one of the most important ones is because chips become less secure over time. (Analogously one wants to put economic pressure on miners to upgrade to the latest bitcoin network (such as when taproot came out).)
It's important to note, the Bitcoin stored on the note doesn't "disappear" after 2029 - but rather the multi-sig on the note reverts from 2-of-2 to 1-of-2 so the value can be claimed - in effect turning the note into something more like a claimable voucher or gift card. It contains value, you just generally wouldn't circulate it after then.
You make a physical representation of something digital which also changed denomination quite often the last 10 years?
What do I do with it?
I mean first of I need to check if the value is on that note so I need a smartphone. Now I have a smartphone why do I need a note?
The only useful thing would be if I as the giver don't have a smartphone but than I also need to give away a printed object. How cheap can someone print something like this?
My favorite part is the pictures of it on the website.
"Hold your corporeal money next to other real things, like pizza and gameboy cartridges and magic the gathering cards. This is a real thing. That you can own. Like this baguette, or this tamagotchi."
You missed the part where the private company 'authenticates the bill being cut in half' in order for them to surrender the private key.
So, in theory, the bill has the printed Satoshi value and doesn't need a smart phone to verify.
Rotlmao.
In practice, the company gets hacked, loses all the keys, and now all these bills in the wild look legit but have no value. Also, they will be counterfeited like all other bills, except easier because thier not a government mint.
It’s not really a joke, but it is a little funny. It’s just a really fancy ‘paper’ wallet. I actually love the concept. I used to make paper wallets for myself and friends, and this is basically the best version I’ve ever seen
Well there is a difference between "purchase a computer that is good enough for your needs and keep it as long as it's good enough" (which I assume is the case for OP) and (quoting parent comment) "Buy the best tools you can" (which for some people here would mean purchasing a new phone and a new computer every year).
I literally have 2 laptops, 1 tablet and 1 desktop computer at home that friends/family gave to me because they were about to throw it away. Why? Because they were too slow, ie, for some reason windows was something something. After an OS reinstall, I'll give them away to whomever need them.
I wish people didn't throw working hardware in the bin, but in my country (France) and social circles (middle class), people definitely do.
I update my system when needed but I always have reasonable good hardware.
SSD/nvm are same defaults for me.
Memory I currently have 48gb in my desktop for running a VM properly.
My last CPU upgrade was necessary when I got a new camera and the raw files grinded Lightroom to a snail.
My keyboards are either full metal base with real cherry MX keys or a expensive ergonomic keyboard also with cherry MX keys.
I sit too long on my device every day to cheap out.
My displays always are at least IPS panels but my current display is already 6 years old. Still IPS with 27" and 1440 resolution.
I think it's good that you can work with your setup and your situation is a little bit harder I guess but make sure that you don't need to wait unreasonably long for your PC doing it's tasks.
You need internet to actually verify and take ownership of the value of it.
It only helps if the giver doesn't have internet.
And sure it's easier to smuggle this one note over a border than a suitcase bout you could smuggle actually anything with an offline wallet in it like USB stick, CD etc.
Why is this significant in your eyes?
I'm lost