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"Retrospectively, a lot of ex-DigiCash employees understand why Chaum was so paranoid. As a cryptographer you have to assume the whole world is trying to rip you off. A certain amount of paranoia is part of the job. Chaum had also worked for intelligence agencies, and that didn't fortify his faith in the good intentions of humankind. His vision of the privacy of the individual was almost an obsession. In 1996 he said, in the relations magazine of Honeywell-Bull: "The difference between a bad electronic cash system and well-developed digital cash will determine whether we will have a dictatorship or a real democracy."
~ NEXT Magazine, 1999
Today's story unfolds around the rise and fall of DigiCash, a pioneering company in digital currency from the 90s. It delves into the paradox of its founder, David Chaum, a visionary yet paranoid cryptographer, whose brilliance in cryptography was overshadowed by his poor business acumen and inability to delegate. This leads to a compelling question: How did DigiCash, despite its advanced technology and potential to revolutionize digital payments, fail and how would the past have been different if it hadn't?
This is an amazing blast from the past with many lessons to learn, don't miss the article and the Guy's Take to follow!
Check out the original article at How DigiCash Blew Everything. (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2s37ew47)
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“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
~ George Orwell
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