Local Currency
From LiberateRochester
Contents |
Goals
- Facilitate trade between peers: friends, neighbors, community members, independent local businesses, etc. Reduce the need for trade with unaccountable state-supported corporations. Allow the unemployed and underemployed to participate in the local economy, despite their lack of access to normal currency.
- Provide a stable means of exchange not subject to inflation or other manipulation by powerful interests. Inflation hits those with the least wealth the hardest, because a larger portion of their wealth is held as cash. Additionally, inflation reduces the real value of the minimum wage.
- Protect privacy by enabling cash-like electronic transactions over the internet. Currently, almost all electronic transactions made with US dollars are traceable.
Plan
Phase 1: Software Development
- Create web application to allow issuing of electronic "tickets". A ticket consists of an electronic document containing a promise by the issuer to provide the bearer of the ticket with a specific good or service upon redemption.
- Create supporting applications in order to make ticket application easier to use.
Phase 2: Initial Promotion
- After first version of software is complete, start seeking beta testers. Local activist organizations, housing cooperatives, etc. Find those who are interested or technically savvy enough to put up with rough edges on early versions.
Phase 3: Creation of Labor Bank
- Once software is usable enough for the average person, create "labor bank" organization. This will issue its own currency, in both paper and electronic forms, based on hours of manual labor. Currency will be traded for and backed by personal manual labor tickets.
Status
Version 0.6.0 of the currency software (AEIOU) was released on 9/29/08.
Help Wanted
Programming
Programmers with knowledge of PHP and MySQL needed to add features and check quality and security of existing code. People with general programming knowledge needed, to create helper applications utilizing the web service API for ticket management, trust metrics, automated transactions, etc. See the task list for details.
Documentation
People with skill in writing technical documentation needed to create/edit tutorial on how to use AEIOU.
Testing
People of all skill levels needed to play with AEIOU, give feedback on usability, try to break it, etc.
Promotion
People needed to promote AEIOU to those who might be interested in doing any of the above, as well as to those interested in creating and using labor currencies.
Technical Details
Each ticket has a corresponding secret key, known only to the bearer and the issuer. In order for the bearer of the ticket to transfer it to someone else (as part of a trade), the key is given to the new bearer. The new bearer presents the key to the issuer, who verifies it and issues a new secret key, unknown to the previous bearer. This "phone home" process can be done through an anonymous channel, so that the issuer does not know who the new bearer is.
Requirements for first version of ticket application:
- Issuers:
- Create account
- Log in
- Create ticket
- View ticket
- Retire ticket
- List tickets
- Bearers:
- View ticket
- Verify key
- Obtain new key
Requirements for later versions:
- Web service API for ticket access
