Ask HN: JWT as a Currency?

Posted by ncodes on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @07:41AM
from the ask-hn dept.

We have been thinking about a financial service that would allow people store value (monetary value) in JWT tokens. This tokens could then be exchanged, deducted from or added to. The idea is to use JWT tokens as some kind of internet money that can be exchange between people as opposed to just applications as an auth mechanism.

I'd like some thoughts as we wouldn't want to do anything that makes sense to us but to no one else.

Thanks

( 2 comments | 2 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: JWT as a Currency? by sovrin on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @07:57AM (#12209245)

Are you going to encrypt these? Plain tokens are easy to decode and manipulate.

https://jwt.io/

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Re:Ask HN: JWT as a Currency? by ncodes on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @08:08AM (#12209289)

I do not think there is need to encrypt the data as the JWT signature ensures the content cannot be altered successfully.

You will need the private key to successfully alter the token.

Also, the tokens shouldn't contain private information since JWT tokens can easily be decoded.

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