Re: e$: Geodesic Securities Markets

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>]

After this, I shan't be replying any more to this thread, as its a
completely obscure and uninteresting topic to most people that has
little to do with cryptography.

Robert Hettinga says:
> >That is largely the case for institutional transactions. Lots of
> >equities are still physically delivered, and in fact all equities are
> >still physically deliverable.                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> Except those equities designated "Book entry only" issues, of course ;-).

No US equities are book entry only. To my knowledge no enabling
legislation to let that happen occured. You can always call up your
broker and ask for certificates if you want them.

> >However, it is still there, and the vaults on Long Island are heavily
> >guarded in spite of the fact that the certificates are non
> >transferable.
> 
> I'm just wondering why not make them e$ certificates someday...

Well, if you allow nothing but book entry, you don't need certificates
sitting in a vault (they exist only because the UCC doesn't grok
issues without certificates), but even so you would still need someone
to be keeping track of the information -- someone has to play bank.

Perry