Nicola Mawson
2012-05-17
http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54870:e-money-raises-privacy-concerns
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E-money is not regular cash going online, but is rather the concept of a digital bearer certificate in a cashless world, explains Matonis, speaking yesterday at ITWeb's Security Summit. He says it works the same way as hard currency, but is electronic, and transactions cannot be reversed.
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An example of decentralised electronic currency is BitCoin, which was launched in January 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, although there are doubts as to whether this is his real name, says Matonis.
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If a state wanted to take out the currency, it would only cost $43 million, although buying the processing power would not be that cheap, as it is the largest distributed network globally, says Matonis.