The reason we can't have nice abstractions involving money is basically because it attracts criminals. Any business dealing with money has to figure out how to deal with fraud or they don't last long.
figure out how to deal with fraud
1: Sell tokens for $1.10 each 2: Buy them back for $1.00 each
Done. No fraud issues.
That could be from a charge back, bounced check, or because the cash was determined to be counterfeit when deposited.
A big problem is the costs involved may be 10% at scale, but are certainly more than ten cents per transaction, so you need to get a deposit, but I'm not buying $50 worth of flooz to pay someone $1, because I don't know when flooz is going to stop working. Anyway, it's not that hard for someone to run a PayPal shop, as long as the product fits PayPal's tos and doesn't look suspicious.
What does your token issuer do
when the purchase of a token is revoked?
When Joe buys an apple from you with a dollar note and you bring that note to your bank - what does the bank do when Joe returns the apple to you? Nothing.
The token issuer sells a box of 100 tokens to a store. And charges the store $110. Just like a chewing gum merchant sells a box of 100 chewing gums to a store.
Last time I checked, there was chewing gum in stores.
Do I go down to my local store, and buy tokens from them, that they've purchased from the issuer? How is that very much different than a prepaid visa/mastercard/amex gift card that I can get today; maybe that it's easier to spend the money with people who can't get a credit card merchant account?
How much margin is the merchant going to add on top of what you're charging them?
How do you deal with anti-money laundering laws, etc?
The question isn't whether there is crime or not, but how much and whether it's worth the cost and risk. Merchants do have to spend time and effort fighting it. It's a significant cost of business.
So now all you're proposing is just a different currency with these tokens. This solves absolutely nothing. Nobody needs to use tokens when they already have real currency to use along with various transfer services to move money physically and digitally.
So, lots of fraud, probably, but if it doesn't affect your profits, you don't care, right? But the government cares and they will come shut you down.
> The economics of drug dealing make it cost-effective to pay 5% to 10% to betting shops to launder the illicit profits.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/08/gambling-mac...