Promise Note

A PromiseNote is a securely signed bunch of bits that can be redeemed for the promised item.

Here is a proposed template of a PGP signed PromiseNote to use as AnonymousEmoney, it is a kind of cut down RicardianContract

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Hash: SHA1

this is a promise note of SomeValue in SomeCurrancy

Date of issue 0th of Never, 3026

serial number 12345 from FingerPrint?OfIssuer valid [until whenever] [once CounterSigned? by ThisFingerPrint?]

redeemable on demand [subject to transfer costs]

void if prohibited by law

[transferable if securely signed over]

Check at URL to see if this serial number is spent yet.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

Version: BlahBlahBlah <http://www.pgp.com>

iQA/LotsOfSigneINgDaTA-But%ThisOnEsafaKE

=jMJ1

-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Comments/Discussion over Template

Hopefully this does/will not violate any DigiCash? patents by David Chaum or Stefan Brands , I *think* any patents are on the mathematical process for a small (dozen byte) certificates and that any patently obvious PlainText IOU should be safe...

Would it be better to have a key ID rather than a FingerPrint? ? Is the date of issue redundant since that information is in the signature, or is it a convienient back up?

The void if prohibited by law seemed a reasonable thing at the time, but is that just begging a law to prohibit it?

did I speak to soon? Below is from a report (the CMC one[1]) to the Australian Tax Office

"There have been suggestions for both forms of regulation. The Working Group on European Union Payment Systems has recommended that only 'credit institutions' be permitted to issue smart cards. This requires the issuing institution to conform with the prudential requirements of the central bank or other supervising authority.

Regulation of transactions has also been suggested. So, for example, it has been suggested that fully anonymous payment systems be prohibited, that smart cards be regulated to contain, or not to contain, certain information and be restricted to values below some ceiling."

Tax offices hate anonymous money. They'd ban all convertible instruments if they could.