pathcoin.md
# PathCoin
### Caveat
Before we begin: this post describes a *very* limited protocol idea. It's possible that what we describe here is a start towards, or a component of, something genuinely useful, but in itself it's really more of a toy, albeit it's fun.
### Non-interactive digital cash
Since the 90s, there was a dream that cash could be sent online just like email. We've basically been experimenting with tradeoffs against this pure vision ever since. Sometimes the tradeoff is: there's a central party we have to trust (either with our privacy or our money or the management or inflation or..), but otherwise we get the goal. Often the tradeoff includes: we have to interact with the receiver. In pretty much *every* case there's an online-ness requirement: we have to exchange messages with a p2p network of active nodes (bitcoin) or a central server and our counterparty, or at least, directly with our counterparty (e.g. Lightning) in the payment transaction.
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