A lot of people are getting very excited about Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Some even question the efficacy of Talents now that there is a global ‘replacement’ for regular money in the form of the crypto-currencies.
Bitcoin is the first major innovation in money in nearly 400 years: It is a private-sector money, not controlled by governments or central banks; it is decentralised and distributed (in the form of the blockchain) rather than centralised; it enables trusted transactions between parties without requiring the services of an intermediary (e.g. banks and clearing houses); the issuance of the number of tokens (coins) is limited by design (i.e. governments and banks can’t issue them at will and create inflation).
Despite these innovations, the crypto-currencies are still ‘money’ in the traditional sense. The ‘coins’ are still seen as a medium of exchange, when such media are no longer necessary for exchange. In other words, even though the coins are digital and have no physical existence, they still ‘exist’ in our minds, they have the property of quantity and are seen to have value in themselves. This is evidenced in the mad frenzy of Bitcoin buying. Practically everyone is buying them as a speculative instrument, hoping that their value will go up in the near future. They are seen primarily as an ‘investment’ rather than something to use in day-to-day exchange (buying and selling).
Bitcoin and most other cryptos are usually obtained by purchasing them with ‘legal tender’ (national currencies), and the ultimate object is usually to ‘cash them out’ (back into national currency) when they have been used to make a ‘killing’. They are thus no more than tokens for our national currencies that can somehow, magically, increase our claim on society without having to give like value back. No one asks where this magical increase in value comes from. Who cares, it’s a good investment!
And because Bitcoins can be ‘owned’, the ownership structure tends to follow that of regular money. This means they concentrate in fewer and fewer hands and do nothing to rectify the inequalities in our world.
Talents, on the other hand, are boring because they don’t have the magical ability to increase in value over time. They are not an investment and won’t make us rich! Why get excited about that?
Talents have no value, because they don’t exist. They measure value instead of being receptacles of value. The only real values in the world are the goods and services backing the numbers. No ‘coin’, especially a digital coin, can have value in itself. Such ‘value’ exists only in our minds. Ultimately the crypto-coins must also be backed by real-world value, and that value comes from the national currencies backing them, which in turn derive their value from the goods and services they can buy.
Talents are thus the only ‘honest money’. They are directly ‘backed’ by real value in the form of the goods and services that they reflect. The Talents measure those values, so the numbers come after the goods and services have changed hands. The CES is purely for facilitating exchange and cannot be used for speculation. You can only have as much as you give. Everyone has an equal chance.
In the case of the crypto-currencies, it is difficult to see how they would continue to operate if there was another global financial crisis, for ‘legal tender’ is the bedrock on which they stand. Talents, on the other hand, do not require national currencies to back them. In fact, the national currencies are what holds back Talent adoption. Talents will flourish when national currencies collapse, for everyone will realise that there is no need for a medium of exchange in order to keep on exchanging. The idea that we need a medium of exchange is kept alive by the banking industry so that they can continue lending us their fraudulent money at interest, and keep us as debt slaves feeding the parasite class to which they belong.
* The name Talent is used here as a generic name for the multiple mutual credit ‘currencies’ used by CES and similar systems, in much the same way that Bitcoin gets used as a generic name for crypto-currencies.
Great article Tim!
How are things going with getting CES onto a block chain?
Hey Rich,
This is certainly the direction it is going to need to take. It may be happening now.
Check this and see what you think
https://getfaircoin.net/
Sounds right to me Tim. I’m a sucker for conspiracy theories and wonder if the manner in which ‘investors’ have chased up the price of Bitcoins (creating the very inflation they were intended to combat), is intended to sabotage the system?
But is it not possible to regulate and monitor the system to prevent such activity?
Hi,
Your argument Re Bitcoin has much moral credit but little practical. Bitcoin is the most exciting innovation in a lifetime and is certain to shake up the financial/ fiat currency world. However, it is a work in progress. The community exchange systems have had their day. They have been around for a long time and remain nothing more than the plaything for some privileged white westerners who can afford such hobbies. Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, have potential to achieve what ‘talents’ could and have not. Redistribution of wealth. Remember Bitcoin is the first of what will be many itterations. Next is faircoin. Google and check its development.
Satoshi
https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-11-08-cryptocurrency-vanishes-user-error-10-reasons-gold-better-than-bitcoin.html
Satoshi I might be a white westerner but I am on a low, fixed income and I need the community currency I earn. It is part of my income, which means I can ‘buy’ food, household cleaning products, help in my garden and around the house. What I spend in units frees up my cash for bills etc. In Australia it does serve a purpose and I think it can in other countries too.
Kylie 🙂
Question:Why isn’t Administrator’s Activitically Seeking Adoption of the The Community Exchange System Mutual Credit Instruments with Large numbers of Companies?
It’s awfully Frustrating that The Community Exchange System isn’t Extremely Aggressive with Getting Adoption.
I reside in Minneapolis Minnesota and The Adoption Rate here Sucks.
Please comment on this and Correct this Situation.
CES is a tool for managing exchange in local communities, as well as a tool for direct action. It is up to local admins and users to bring businesses and new users on board. There is no top-down, super-admin that can persuade companies in other parts of the world to participate in an alternative economy. Increasing the adoption rate is your task.
this article is not good to me since I already shown how both can the CES and bitcoin blockchain can work together.
this is a bad article
This is not a useful comment
Explain how when I and others are proving the blockchain and the CES work perfectly together? You are just a support of insecure ledgers you can’t offer any counter to why I say this is not a good article!
Blockchain and Bitcoin are not the same thing. I have no objection to using blockchain, and in fact we are planning to integrate it into CES. CES’ ledgers are not insecure because all transactions for all time have to add up to zero. This magic number tells us if the ledger is compromised in any way. If it is, we can very easily find the source of the error. The blockchain thus does not provide any additional security for our ledger, but we want to use it in order to distribute and decentralise the database.
I am not sure who wrote this but I can tell your knowledge of the security of Bitcoin and the blockchain is lacking. Which Bitcoin and Blockchains go hand & hand. No one to date has hacked bitcoin’s blockchain ledger. I.e. Which is why it’s the most popular ledger. The only blockchain to not get hacked and you say it won’t enhance the CES security. The ledgers on CES can be changed anytime by an ADMIN. Not with Bitcoin ledger incorporated Trust me I am one. We have our CES ledger reflects the encrypted one and this what we’re doing with bringing bitcoin into CES. And it is a game changer unless there is a gatekeeper who doesn’t want to see a true sharing economy which is what Bitcoin brings to the table and represents.
Blockchain is a digital technology that enables the creation of unique digital entities or digital records. This was not possible before blockchain technology was invented because pure digital records are infinitely replicable and these copies are indistinguishable from one and other.
Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies depend on blockchain technology. Because of their uniqueness they are commodities and are no longer money, in the true sense of the word, being a recording of the value of something else.
Greetings all,
I would propose a few intellectual distinctions here concerning value and its conceptions. Value is the desirability of a thing, and we use money or exchange vouchers to represent this intellectual concept and its immaterial reality. The value of Bitcoin is in one sense speculative, but in another it expresses a real distrust of the dystopian control of the banking system and a desire to avoid taxes and have freedom to engage in financial transactions at a global level, with cryptographic certainty. This capacity, local vouchers generally do not have, and thus it is no surprise they do not have such desirability. The money being gained from crypto-currency speculation is related in large degree to speculation, but is undeniably also linked to use of an innovative technology that creates new things, applications and fields of endeavour (just like the printing press, steam engine or internet).
The answer is not in hard and fast distinction along dualistic lines of ‘good vs. bad’, but to find where has this new technology been used for similar values as those of vouchers and CES. The answer is in Faircoin, which is also working to make greater interchangeability of itself as a coin, with local currencies and trading systems, by trying to integrate these as parts of its own larger ‘ecosystem’. Therefore against the false separation of all ‘evil’ cryptos from local vouchers or exchanges, Faircoin is a practical experiment showing the use of such technology for taking anti-speculative values to a global level using the anonymity and safety of the crypto-technology. This shows that many things can have good or bad consequences, it largely depends upon the values with which it is being used.
I would encourage everyone to read more about Faircoin and to see that here, the exception proves the rule- most cryptos are drowning in speculation, but the technology itself has very radical and potentially emancipatory implications, which have to be used if we are serious about remaining relevant in the 21st century.
Cordially
gr8 comment !
\
“LETS” all, please , for now, just
use simplest blockchain’g
( such as spreadsheet.trees )
of simple fair.exchange records
( such as Talents & FairCoin )
{{ , rather than doing so for “mirage. money” such as Bitcoin ! }}
\
We can actually already all do so
quite cheaply & universally ,
via merely the most common spreadsheets (however.’clunky’)
,
— js for now, anyway —
til we can get.going a platform.set
that’s structured more naturally
,
ala “trees.of.trees.of.trees”
\
For this we must also
slow uber.hack’g
by develop’g local argots for
zipping.together the sheets
,
even while maintain’g worldwide.universal terms
for much of the things offered & wanted
\
——-
To help develop this ,
for All t come ,
reply here or t
RepayingKindness (at) Grnall dotcorn
,
or t
w2k4Net (at) GMC dotcorn
\\
Hi Tim,
This is a great article. Can I reproduce it on Central Coast LETS website ?
I would give you full credits of course and link back to here.
Thanks
Jean
Sure Jean. You can use anything on this website, anytime.
I agree most cryptocurrencies are run by speculation, maybe with the exception of Faircoin and Freicoin. But, do you see the applicability of blockchain itself in CES? I am not a techie expert but it seems it is worth looking at this technology and explore it. Maybe could help with the inter-trade between the exchange systems?
I am curious about how blockchain could actually help community currencies.
Thanks for the article!
Seems the canya.io is making waves to become a global LETS using a digital currency.
They have an ICO running at the moment raising funds in ETH.
Very interesting – seems to maybe have an AUD and CAN connections…
If the ICO is successful then there will be a global services platform up and going….
Update on canya.io
Seems is here in OZ
Is it just another BarterCard??
See Fin Review http://todayspaper.smedia.com.au/afr/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=AFR%2F2017%2F11%2F22&entity=Ar03801&sk=FFE3B544&mode=text
Nothing “Local” and “community” here…
Your article resonates with me. As a “complete layman”, I see the Bitcoin buying frenzy as an opportunity for those who are by the means to invest (for it is an investment “bypassing the banks”) and quite frankly, there are those who are “making a killing”. Plus there are online sites where Bitcoin is presented as a payment option – so there is something to it, after all. In terms of an Evolution in Consciousness, will it bring Humanity to the next level – hmmmm …..questionable! It is essentially a “global currency” that has folk feeling there is no difference in value in terms of “my bitcoin owned VS your bitcoin owned” (seems folk are forgetting that it was purchased at the rate their currency was valued, but….). To each his own, I say. Technological advances took Atlantis “down” at the end of the day, but prior to it’s going down there were those that “seized the moment and lived it up”. I am being somewhat cynical, but what the heck – it really boils down to the individual. Where is your focus, what are your thoughts (should I rather say “fears”) in terms of the future and what are you prepared to invest in: accumulation of wealth, understanding the Self, getting to grips with “reality”, becoming Soul Conscious etc. etc. etc.
At BrisLETS I’m trying to figure out how small and large companies can use our trading platform. I suspect the only things holding them back is our current limit on Debit and credit, plus the shortage of goods and services being offered.
What do you think of fair coin, Tim? I haven’t looked into it myself.
At BrisLETS I’m trying to figure out how small and large companies can use our trading platform. I suspect the only things holding them back is our current limit on Debit and credit, plus the shortage of goods and services being offered.
What do you think of fair coin, Tim? I haven’t looked into it myself.