Gift certificates (or cards, et cetera) are one of my favorite gifts to receive.

They're no more personal than cash, and considerably less valuable. Also, read the fine print.

Hmm... that one has an extra trailing bracket...click me instead.

Gift cards are a great way to facilitate a competitive digital currency.

What?

Oscar -- Enh, I have no interest in the bank gift (visa/master) cards. It seems an odd way of transmitting money to me, and contains no added data. The reason I like gift cards is that they specify how I am to spend the money. If I am given a check, I may feel I must save it or use it Responsibly. A gift card from Powell's contains a message about how it should be used -- just as a check from my mom with a note saying "buy yourself pretty clothes that fit! No responsible spending!" does -- frees me to enjoy the money. Lack of guilt is a lovely present.

David -- interesting. Oddly, it reminded me of the terribly low-tech local-currency schemes I heard about on NPR the other day. The 'Ithaca Hour' of Ithaca, NY was the one they focused upon.

I'm currently working on an asset-based distributed digital currency, mostly based on the work of Chris Cook (opencapital.net) and Ryan Fugger's Ripple pay system(ripplepay.com). This is part of my interest in OpenID and in joining the OpenID networks, as I believe it will be an important component in finally getting control of our money system in the hands of the people. Which I believe is eventually inevitable.