Isn't this concept similar to the peer to peer digital currency outlined in Snow Crash? I have to admit that I didn't read too much in the original post, but the idea that something even remotely close is being worked on is fascinating.

If I remember correctly from the book, a decentralized currency exchange system accepted by all was also unable to be reliably taxed by governments, despite attempted legal ramifications. This lead to the downfall of regular nation states due to complete fiscal insolvency essentially overnight.

I understand it was just a work of fiction, but would such an outcome be possible, or even desirable? Would we ever accept such a system as a replacement for the traditional banking conglomerates? Even worse, who do you trust more in this day and age, the bankers or the software nerds? :)

Given the current state of things, I won't be moving my Sealy Posturepedic retirement fund into the Bank-O-Bits, but the potential is somewhat mind blowing for the future.

...and yes, I stopped lurking for the last 10 years to post this :)

Woops, sorry about the lack of breaks and spelling...I clicked submit instead of preview. Born again slashdot virgin, so my bad :)

I will admit this after many years, but Ghost Recon had the worst client side weakness of any game I have seen in multiplayer mode. Before starting a map, you select your soldier type and weapons from a fairly large list of possibilities (especially with the expanded gun and weapon mods that were very popular in the day). The glitch came in when my brother and I realized that the ballistics and weapon characteristics were loaded only from the player hosting the server, and were never verified by the clients connecting. The big bad exploit came when it came time to gear up. Several weapons were basically useless in game as they had been included from the beginning single player missions. Crappy guns and rifles with no accuracy or ammo capacity that even noobs would never ever pick. Since you knew that your opponents would never chose these hunks of junk, you were free to go into the ballistics text file and change them into weapons of infinite accuracy and even more instant death. My fully automatic silenced gattling gun sniper rifle with 0 recoil would have given Reason a run for it's money :) Combine that with poor rendering of scrub bushes and I was able to mangle the entire opposing team for over a year with impunity. It was the only time I ever exploited anything in a multiplayer game, but it was like heroin...one taste and I was hooked :) If there is a special place in hell for me, I'll save a spot for the rest of you up front :)