You can’t develop the manufacturing capacity of a country by varying with the voltage of the electricity supply.
You can’t ensure equal distribution of goods in a country by varying the design of road pavement.
Perhaps social ills are neither caused by the design of the currency, nor can they be cured that way.
]]>If you limit the total supply, it becomes a “to be the early adopter” gold rush, the coin becomes very scarce and highly speculative
If you do not limit the total supply(keep daily coin generation at 7200 forever for example), then it will have endless supply, its value will be very stable and boring, thus no one even care about it (The expected gain of using bitcoin over fiat currency will be so small that it does not even worth the effort)
So, to find its ground in already crowded monetary/payment system, bitcoin selected the deflative end of the spectrum, which is a huge success
And, if you have different types of currency running parallel in the economy, the deflation of one currency will not impact the economy, it will just make other inflative currency more popular
]]>Money supply should be controlled by the equation M = PQ/V.
]]>I don’t think there is one next step for digital currencies, may variety flourish.
I’ve been working with local currency systems for 20 years and one conclusion I have reached is that we have all been far too obsessed with ‘the money’, the currency mechanism. We have not paid enough attention to what a local economy looks like and who are the main players that use a currency. In a simplified version of complex reality, there are four main social and economic players in every region: individuals, businesses, voluntary groups and local government agencies. Each of these players has needs and has underused resources that could be meeting other peoples’ needs. So let’s find out what those are and invite those players to put them all on a map for all to see.
Imagine an online map of your region where you can click on your local area and see exactly who needs what and who offers what at any time. That in itself is a very powerful process and may be enough to generate all kinds of new economic activities in conventional currency. Once we have created this Map together, we can then have the conversation about whether we need an additional regional currency to oil the wheels of exchange and what form that may take: dollar-backed local currency, mutual credit system or even a new kind of regional crypto-currency like the proposed Hullcoin in the UK. We can also add other features to this collective Map: social network, marketplace, crowdfunding etc.
I have summarised this proposal and how it might be developed in a new pamphlet called “The Map – How To Out Your Local Economy”, available at Lulu.com:
]]>2. Any incentive is arguably bad: as by spending money on stuff they don’t need, they are being motivated to waste.
3. Any gradual degradation of the value of money—whether engineered or through inflation—doesn’t motivate people to spend. It motivates them to invest at a rate of return higher than the inflation rate. Such investment then drives capital accumulation.
4. In many countries, there is already a legal separation between the controllers of the money supply and the body politic, with the latter unable to instruct the former.
5. It’s unclear why bitcoin was modelled on gold. The gold standard was abandoned because of the role that it played in the creation of the Great Depression. Generally, calls for a return to the gold standard is most common among far right conservatives, not social progressives.
6. Fixing the money supply will not make inflation “impossible”. It will make deflation inevitable.
7. It’s unclear why you would call for a stable currency in one paragraph, and for demurrage in another. One is the anti-thesis of the other.
8. Making collection of taxes impossible will not only be blow to the surveillance state, but to all forms of state services. Why this is considered a good thing is unclear. If one wants to control the surveillance state, much more efficient and effective to attack it directly: not by eroding the tax structure in order to topple the state, which would have many (to say the least) unintended consequences. Again, toppling the state in order to reduce taxes is on the agenda of the extreme right.
9. Rich people do not get rich by manipulating the currency. It’s called capitalism because the game is about capital, not currency, and the two are not the same. Today, Wall Street firms today get rich by creating financial instruments: not by currency manipulation. This is finance capitalism.
10. Having your own currency does not free you from the economic control of those who own the world’s capital. Again: capital is not currency, currency is not capital. If I own 80% of a country’s land and you own none, you can print as much of your own currency as you like. I will still be rich. You will still be poor.
I wholly agree that politics is inescapable. Unfortunately, the dream of a society which is regulated by a digital money, instead of regulated by the political process, has the primary effect of deflecting attention from politics into the design of symbolic systems which will end achieve nothing: precisely because only through politics will people effect their future.
]]>It’s not so far to be testable. People can help the project with time, and also money with gratipay : https://gratipay.com/ucoin/
]]>Wrap some basic simple rules / regulations around the issuance and the currency should regulate itself.
If the currency is only ever earned into existence for activities that protect the integrity of the commons (teaching, giving learning) then you have a self regulating currency. You would never have inflation since you could never enough teaching giving or learning.
Demurrage would be a matter of over-regulation. This is becuase the only way to get one’s hands on the commodity / currency is to earn it into existence which means you have more time than money on your hands, otherwise why would you bother earning a community currency when you are already skilled enough to be earning a regular currency like the dollar.
In other words you earn it if you’re broke. And if you’re broke why would you hoard it? No need for demurrage therefore.
You wouldn’t put a lid on the amount that could be issued as long as it was only ever earned into existence for pro-social or pro-environmental activities. This would mean the value of the currency would be sustainable.
In order to be truly valuable, such a currency would need to be measurable in a standardised and universal format. It would need to be attributable so that it was credited to your account as soon as you earned it. And it would need to be transferrable to other people who also possess an account (in exchange for something else of value).
A currency that is also a commodity (it’s the virtual representation of teaching giving learning) would be very attractive to dollar based investors looking to hedge against a black swan event. They may even take to it like Bitcoin since it’s very very sustainable.
This might sound a bit far-fetched but let me tell you that it’s really just a syntheis of a rewards platform like tesco’s clubcard, a social network like linkedin or facebook and a marketplace like amazon or ebay. All of which is tied together by a measuring system that accounts for your reputation when it comes to teaching giving or learning.
think of it like a social stock exchange.
Come see what’s happening in Manchester which is of course the home of free trade and social justice.
@mikeriddell62
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