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Centralisation is the reason all the Bitcoin precursors ultimately failed. They worked technically, most of them had proof of concepts, but there was always a pressure point that could be taken out to end the project.

mike 10mo ago

Yeh, I hadn't appreciated how core the drive for decentralisation was, unless Adam is nursing history, which I don't think he is.

My understanding from listening to David Chaum and his critics (co-founders) is that DigiCash failed because he cared more about the principles than the success of DigiCash.

At peak it was even adopted by MicroSoft and a bank, but it was his stubbornness about technical issues that caused it to fail. I've heard him acknowledge that himself.

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Discussion

StackSats.IO 10mo ago

DigiCash had a few big banks but not yet Microsoft and yes it was partially Chaum who led it to failure.

Ok book on the precursor technology side is this one: https://thegenesisbook.com

Good for an overview and timeline but you’ll want to dig into the projects individually more. Lots lost to dead links now unfortunately

mike 10mo ago

Thanks 🙏