The timebeats proposal is described on this page:
Timebeats alternate currency – presentation and synopsis
The currency is time based and allows an initial credit to participants to make their education – both formal and informal – count as an asset.
It is described as “… a debt-free decentralised currency called Timebeats, completely based on time. It supports what is universal in every human being, regardless of culture, beliefs, or position:
• we all want to love and be loved
• we all want the opportunity to create
• we want what we create to be acknowledged to be of value by as many people as possible.
All users will default to collaborate and share knowledge to create the highest quality product with minimal resources in the shortest time, perpetuating sustainability and creating a measurable reputation economy.
At the core of Timebeats is education and creativity, funded through crowdsourcing. People are the most valuable asset any project/business can have.
Funding becomes redundant. So do lots of other things, in particular tax, poverty, crime, and most con?ict. The idea of money as a commodity is eradicated; there is no need to make money on money…”
For now, the currency description is an idea. In fact, the author asks for help in developing this into an actual application:
“It’s been almost 2 years of research, verification, and validation and now feedback from various sources demands that I launch the currency to put my projections to the test.
This means I now need a website and app with a transaction module (like a bank; no need for interest calculations, but just as secure) and an exchange module (whats on offer, to learn, to wish). As reputation is now the new measure of status, there is a need to provide feedback on people’s work as well as ranking, similar to social media, but only based around trade. Toaccommodate any mobile device, an SMS transaction protocol is also required for transactions.”
We have enough currency design ideas out there, all hoping for angel investors AND communities prepared to experiment with them.
However rather than designing currencies in a vacuum, we should be partnering with communities and trying currency and other methodologies to design solutions to their specific problems.
I love the concept of new currencies. Sacred Economics is inspirational. Sensorica is a fantastically interesting value-accounting system. Reputation-based systems are important to integrate too. Timebanks are nice, Local Service Exchanges are great too! So many fantastic small scale solutions.
I’ve had an idea and am developing it now. We have a team that are bringing this into reality with volunteer work. It’s called JoatU and stands for the Jack of All Trade Universe. It is an online community marketplace where you can trade anything for anything.
There is also a currency involved (which you are not forced to use) called the Jack of All Trade Unit. These units are created by the people for the people on demand.
So instead of the government asking to create $100,000,000 and then distribute it, we have the person wanting to offer something to the community stand up and say, I want to plant a garden to feed my neighborhood. The neighborhood then gets an email telling them about it. They vote how much they think it’s worth. The votes average out. And then whatever the number is that the votes average out to, that number is created. So let’s say 10 JoatU. So the person plants the garden, 10J are created to pay them, and then the garden is open to the public and the person has 10J to barter to other people for their INDIVIDUAL goods and services.
Joatu are created for COMMUNITY offers. INDIVIDUAL offers do not generate JoatU but are direct transactions between two or more people.
We hope to launch in one community location in downtown Montreal by January 2014. Please follow us on Twitter or Facebook for developments. Or sign up directly and start filling out a profile!