this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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Ask Solarpunk

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We need altcoins as long as we interact economically over the net, with people we do not know (or simply with people outside our local communities). If we try to imagine what qualities a "solarpunk coin" should have, what are your thoughts? Do we know any existing coin, checking all boxes? This question is more about political economy of Solarpunk, then its technology.

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[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago (7 children)

First of all the reason you seem to get downvoted is the term altcoin, which is very much crypto currency, which has a lot of problems in a solarpunk context.

The fundamental problem currencies try to solve is a lack of trust between parties in a trade. Bascially if you get money, you know you can exchange it for something you want right now or later. So it enables transactions between people who do not know each other and do not trust each other, but trust a the third party issueing the currency. Hence a currency needs to be easy to transfer, so people actually use it, stable in value so people trust it, divisible so people can pay a fair price and recognized, so people can exchange it in as many places as possible for as many different types of goods or services as possible.

The way we usually solve it, is by having a government issue the currency. The reason it has value, is that people living in the country issueing the currency have to pay taxes in that currency. So a lot of people actually do need it. Obviously this require governments and gives those governments a lot of power. However there is another way and that is begging the currency to something, which has value. We do that all the time with coupons and vouchers. The problem with that is that the whatever it is being pegged too, can change in value relative to the entire economy. So if you have your currency fixed to say imaginum and there is only a fixed supply of imaginum in the world, but the economy grows twice in size, you end up with 100% inflation. That was a massive problem with the gold standard btw. It was somewhat fixed, by governments printing more money, then they could actually back with gold. Obviously that is not quite the idea.

So given the options a well run government system seems to me to be better. The good part about that, is that this allows to fund public services as well.

However most currency today is not created by governments today. Instead it is created by banks. When a bank gives you a loan, you get cash and the bank gets a gurantee from you worth the loan. You get cash from the bank and for that the bank gets a gurantee that you pay back the loan. The bank does not use its own money for it, but money other bank cutomers have in their bank accounts. Obviously though those cutomers can still pay with the money they have in their bank account using credit cards for example. So a loan basically doubles the money in the system.

So most money is debt and debt has a big problem in the solarpunk world, as it requires more money to be paid back. Hence you need economic growth and that is a really nasty problem. So making banking illegal would solve a lot of problems.

TLDR: Government issued currency, without banking.

[–] Petros@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

One technical remark:

if you have your currency fixed to say imaginum and there is only a fixed supply of imaginum in the world, but the economy grows twice in size, you end up with 100% inflation.

Should read "deflation".

Other than that, I agree - within your assumptions of a well run governemnt. However, there is a whole lot of people within solarpunk realm who do not believe thet "a well run government" can exist (detailed definitions aside) and do want government (governance body) beyond the scale of a community that can directly control it. Thus, any such government-backed currency would still be local. Which puts us back to the field one, lacking the intergovernmental exchange carrier.

Getting a bit more theoretical, I am in favor of two currency-backing values that are IMO elementary and not substitute: energy and time. We see many "timebank" systems run locally, but even if we can say that this is the currency created (though commitment) by individuals, they still follow the pattern of central clearing office, sometimes with added reputation systems.

Energy - which essentially all solar, by the way - is mostly used via proof-of-work schemes, and could probably be used through proof-of-useful-work filter, which to me looks like a good way to fund/support public works.

This way or another, whatever is the source of the currency, we always need to address the risk of double spending and forgery. In absence of a commonly trusted authority (bank or government), public trust and control can be exercised through an openly available, tamper-proof and distributed ledger. Now, blockchain is one way to implement it. Can we imagine something else?

tl;dr: No authority, no blockchain - then what?

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