Firefly - Breaking the Verse

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

What might be the case is that Alliance Credits require hardware that is rare in the outworlds - consider the reliance of modern electronic payments on relatively high tech chip and pin readers. If even the Alliance's "cash" is in the form of electronic bearer currency, or requires to be officially transferred to a named individual then it becomes useless wherever the currency cannot be read or the transfer notarised.

No person engaged in an illegal transaction will be interested in a traceable means of exchange regardless of technological availability.

[davidtmoore]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No person engaged in an illegal transaction will be interested in a traceable means of exchange regardless of technological availability.

Why not? No person engaged in an illegal transaction will be interested in traceable currency for that transaction; but if the legal currency is more stable or widely usable than the illegal currency, they'll damn sure to launder it as soon as they can. You know, that's why laundering happens.

And actually even then; if someone can do an illegal transaction in a legal currency without it being obvious that the transaction's illegal, it may be safer than doing it in an illegal currency and risking being caught for the lesser crime when they've got away with the greater crime.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No person engaged in an illegal transaction will be interested in a traceable means of exchange regardless of technological availability.

Which is generally why governments find cashless societies so appealing - but I was extending beyond purely illegal transactions for the sort of reasons why you might develop alternative currencies around the rim by default ... in some ways, less a useful reply to your post than using it as a jumping off point into the general discussion.