The dollar ($) is down against the Euro (€) and the Pound (£).Not to worry. In the future, we’ll be creating our own currency. Let’s call it “money-me.”Enabled by the Internet, communities of interest are creating their own money systems and using them to trade for goods and services.These peer-to-peer “monetary” systems offer unique payback and facilitate forms of commerce that benefit our individual lives and global societies considerably.
Today's Internet-fueled Third Wave information age creates more options and opportunities for money to evolve.We all know how PayPal and WebMoney are fueling “mass” Internet commerce.Fewer may know about e-dinar, a fully gold- and silver-backed Internet electronic payment system.
Since the e-dinar system provides instant settlement (cleared funds are instantaneously transferred from the payer’s to the payee’s account without requiring third-party intermediaries), the digital currency enables “custom” Internet commerce in concert with Islamic law, which does not permit the use of a promise of payment as a medium of exchange.
Another example is the NOPPES currency in Amsterdam.It functions as a medium of exchange for trade and as a way that members of their community support each other’s activities.For instance, a member may earn currency by doing carpentry for one person, and spend it later on elder care with another member.NOPPES is one form of a Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) -- local, non-profit exchange networks in which goods and services can be traded without the need for printed currency.
These systems are in operation around the world. There are over 400 LETS schemes in the U.K. alone, like the Rheidol currency of the CyFLe Aberystwyth community in Aberystwyth, Wales. This isn't just bartering. Members get Rheidols for what they do, and they can then spend with anyone else in the system. CyFLe Aberystwyth has also set up inter-trading agreements and a currency exchange process with neighboring community currency systems. Community members browse an online directory of services, as well as the latest offers and wants, or they send and receive offers via email.
North America has many similar systems in operation, such as the BerkShares in western Massachusetts, Ithaca Hours in New York, and Calgary Dollars in Alberta, Canada.
Businesses have been providing customized currency for years -- U.S. shoppers will spend about $25 billion this year on gift cards.But increasingly, individuals are using the Internet to take this customization further.
Today, if you receive a gift card that is not to your liking, you can sell or barter it at Swapagift.com.Frequent flyer miles, another form of custom currency, also are going digital. There are now Internet-based markets for monetizing and exchanging the 14.2 trillion airline miles in existence (at 2-cent value per mile, they’re a $280 billion “money-me”).
It used to be simple: The government issued currency and we spent it. We’ve already seen the Internet-enabled proliferation of new custom forms of money.In the future we will see an even greater shift toward digital currency.Smaller groups, and even individuals, will be creating and exchanging currencies for their diverse needs.
As the “official” economy becomes more unstable, we may see more of our commerce drive toward Internet-based currency systems, with a whole new set of risks we don’t yet understand. However, there will also be a whole new set of benefits to the individuals that “old money” just can’t provide.
I was happy to see that you mentioned Ithaca Hours as I live
within an hour drive of that very progressive town.
I have never used the Ithaca Hours but, I did briefly meet
the man who helped started it, Paul Glover.
The creation of a new
currency within a newly established economic system provides for another route
for new entrants to participate in the local economy.
In places such as Ithaca,
it has worked and I see it more of emphasizing the local economy and keeping it
self sustainable.
It is an
exciting prospect that such alternative economy could make the world even
smaller and enable for a greater number of participants to enter the global
economy.
I agree there would be potential for abuse - we have e-bank robbers already, and e-money scammers are hard at work right now. But I'd like to mention that many companies already do pay their employees in company money - stocks, and stock options - which are intended to make the employee work to maximize the value of his stock shares and stock options.
If you mean, would companies try to make the value of company money dependent on the employee's work status, now that would be heinous.
Since the first wire transfer, electronically transmitted currency has enabled the siphoning of money out of one community and into another, or even across the world. I was glad to see you mentioned Ithaca Hours, Berkshares, and other local currencies that help people keep money within their communities. E-money makes using these systems easier, as it doesn't require printing any scrip - though issuing scrip would still be the best way for enabling local money, without resorting to expensive point-of-sale scanners, or biometric scanners (still expensive, and creepy to the people who would be most inclined to use local scrip). However, a system like Amazon's text-to-pay system may be the kind that sweeps through the developing countries of Africa and Asia, where now more people have wireless phones than landlines.
The e-dinar system is very interesting - perhaps we should all follow that islamic dictum - we wouldn't be in this mortgage lending crisis now if we did!
It is amazing how efficient emoney
is! Now everything is possible with the internet. For the moment, there is any visible
consequence in this system. In fact, your post causes me to give it a second
thought. I have never doubted of its safety but if only there is any
negative consequence, the damage will not be small considering the number of
users. I do not know much about edinar, but pay pal has millions of users who
trust it.
Anyway, this new form of transaction gives me a thought about the law
that regulates it, if any there is. Let us take eBay by way of illustration:
everybody can be a seller at ebay. Traditionally, sellers must have authorization
to enter the market, if I am not mistaken. Now it is a kind of mishmash.
Everybody can be a seller or a buyer and do transaction via emoney. They say, “It
is easy and safe”. Don’t you suspect another negative consequence in terms of legislation
of the economic sector?
Let me just say that I'm thoroughly intrigued by your ideas. I was shocked when I realized I never thought of "digitalizing" money.(By the way, this is a very tideous term in mathematical sense since money falls within a digital system, in our every day life at least). Eitherway, I was temporarily shocked until I realized that this notion doesn't fall too far from my every day economic activities. (Online shopping, Magnetic strips on plastic cards with which I use money I don't have...etc).
I'm a strong supporter though that in certain times in humanity some sorts of scientific revolution must occur in order to keep our species in existence and this sounds that it could be a good candidate for an economic "revolution".
1) A new monetary system that's not radically better, and in this case it's not, should not be even considered. If "gold" is cracking in National banks, codes can be cracked easier.
2)Even if this is an improvement in order to take place it must find in agreement all the nations. I'm fairly confident that Third World countries won't be able to be part of this revolution and therefore condemn them to remain at the class they are right now.
3) Then again, maybe all these occurs due to the pre-historic idea of money being a subject of substance.
Your ideas were really interesting, but I was wondering what you think some of those "risks we don't yet understand" could be. Would the economy become less stable and more difficult for the government to regulate? Could allowing so many different types of currency -- and the freedom to basically create currency -- have the potential for abuse? (Could a company decide to pay its employees
only in company dollars, keeping its employees dependant on their jobs?)
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Recently, the Obama administration has been of two minds where privacy rights are concerned. On one hand, you have an administration that vowed to veto CISPA and mandated open data for government websites. On the other hand, you have an increasingly out-of-control Department of Justice on a fishing expedition at AP and demanding legislation to let the FBI wiretap private, encrypted communications and levy fines if a company fails to comply.
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Subsidized handsets, rather than locked handsets, should be the focus of regulators. We're not getting good deals, not fostering innovation, and weakening our power as buyers.
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