I cannot say it is a token token, because that would imply that it is quantifiable, and it is not. You cannot count EmptyCoin.
You can gift EmptyCoin to someone else. It is a token of appreciation, it has no quantity or value. But it is acknowlegement.
EmptyCoin is real, it is just tricky to understand in a society where everything is assigned a value.
I have EmptyCoin is a way of saying that I grasp that not everything needs to have a numerical value, that existence is sufficient. Peace cannot be counted. You cannot double peace. My love cannot be worth 3x your love.
EmptyCoin is real, it exists. It is mined from dark energy by the self-transforming machine elves who reveals themselves to users of DMT.
Users of DMT are gifted EmptyCoin, that is how it has been seeded in our dimension. Those users are given instructions on how to distribute it.
Until now they did not realise that they were a delivery mechanism for a multi-dimensional crypto-currency that carries no value and cannot be enumerated.
It can also be found in nature, in our dimension, as a by-product of calculus. Whenever anyone attempts to multiply something by zero, EmptyCoin is released.
Just by reading this, you have been gifted EmptyCoin, you now have it, and you can gift others.
You do not need to tell someone you have gifted them EmptyCoin, but your life will improve simply by doing so. So will theirs.
As long as cryptocurrencies are related – in any way – to traditional currencies, they don’t have a chance.
They need to be able to stand on their own two feet, to work in isolation.
It is possible, we just need to find a set of services that form a circular economy. Here is a non-exhaustive starting point.
Platforms/Currencies that it can revolve around
Crypto Game Metaverse Advertising (Google/FB) Venture Capital Crowdfunding Equity Crowdfunding Peer2Peer Lending Services Platform (Fiverr)
Digital uses for the currency (must be primarily labour-intensive)
Web design Game design Graphic design Writing Journalism Guest Posting Translation Programming Tech Support Consulting Life Coaching Virtual Assistant Customer Care Tutoring Music / Voice Over / Jingles Video Editing Transcription Influencer Marketing Community Management
Offline (must be primarily labour-intensive)
Modelling Personal Trainer Gardening / Landscaping Driving / Delivery (not own vehicle) Hairdressing (for someone else’s salon, or from home) Massage Child care Cleaner Housesitter Photography Mystery Shopper Furniture Assembly
The above is literally a starting point. Somebody might need to intuit the system that works, for it isn’t easy to deduce. What is likely needed is degrees of separation that connect the above.
For example:
Game Developer pays Graphic Designer 1LC (LifeCoin) Graphic Designer pays Accountant 1LC Accountant pays Bakery 1LC <<< is not a primarily labour-intensive business, has real-world, fiat currency costs! Bakery pays SEO company 1LC SEO Company pays Game Developer (for in-app ads) 1LC
We effectively have a bartering system that uses a cryptocurrency. It works great on a simplistic level.
Major issue – the balancing act
What if the Graphic Designer gets more LC than they can spend? With a fiat currency, our entire world revolves around it, and finds a use for it. Not so with a fledgling currency that needs to be different and not convertible. (Why not convertible? Well, it renders it meaningless – why not just use the dollar anyway??)
So we need an extra mechanism, one that takes care of deficits and surpluses. A bank? With interest rates? That still doesn’t work – because you can’t cash out beyond what is available to buy with a LC. And, initially, that is limited.
And we cannot convert it to a fiat currency. So what else can it be used for? What has value and is open-ended?
Here are some random ideas, not to be taken seriously, just testing the water:
Status – hey look at me, I have many! Offspring – your great-great-grandchildren might need a personal trainer Capital Investment – there is value in ownership beyond dividends Charity – labor-intensive charity work could be paid
My Best Guess (so far)
Some Facebook-esque corporation will create an Augmented Reality overlay of our world (info, social and advertising), and link it to a virtual world of socialising and gaming. It will have an internal currency.
There are 2 ways a crypto-currency can launch, aside from speculation and ponzi schemes:
A major corporation with a digital product simply brings it into being:
Google – receives money for digital advertising, and digital entertainment products, and gives money in the AdSense network.
2. A circular economy, based on labour-intensive work:
It still needs a catalyst. A play-to-earn video game is my best bet. A game so good that is success drives the model.
All cryptocurrency is magically created from thin air, one way or another. It can be created via proof of work, or bought based on some future use you believe in. But it isn’t physical and making anything digital is essentially free.
We also have stablecoins, which are (if it isn’t a scam) backed by real money and aligned with a currency and serve no meaningful advantage over cash.
Either way, everybody wants to profit from crypto, or at the very least break even and get some functionality. But what if we seeded a cryptocurrency by giving it to a charity?
Charities of course already receive donations, so all we are changing is the format. I give the crypto service $100 cash, the money gets banked somewhere, and the charity gets 100 Charity Coins.
The charity can then spend it anywhere that accepts it, so we need merchants on board who charities usually spend with. And then wherever those merchants spend money, encourage them to accept it.
This seeds the cryptocurrency, which can circulate forever, or be redeemed for cash. That redemption would be 98% or something to cover costs and encourage circulation.
You can also buy Charity Coin directly from the exchange, and get 100 coins for $110. That 10% goes to all the involved charities on a pro-rata basis, determined by the amount of donations they receive.
But here’s the thing – charity money is cool. When you pay in Charity Coin, indirectly you are supporting it & promoting it, which makes you look good, and benefits the charities. Nobody knows if you bought it (giving 10% to charity) or received it from someone.
Because crypto can be tracked (anonymously). we can see how the donation not only helps the charity, but circulates throughout society. This will provide empirical evidence of how putting money into the economy stimulates it. And then governments can use that data to base their spending on. By actually knowing that $1 put into the economy increases the GDP by $5, or whatever. So the government could manage this, in return for the data.
And… it can be used for charity accountability, if we can see where they spend their coins.
To remove barriers to acceptance, the coin needs to be acceptable through existing payment mechanisms. The best/easiest way is via a bank or government operating it. Governments can mandate it, or a bank can call it a featue. Banks do give a lot to charity anyway, so this could be an extension of that.
I mentioned recently how an AI can now own a patent, and presumably also earn an income from it.
The problem with money is you need a bank account, and that can only be opened by a person (or a company, which has to ultimately be owned by people). Even if you go to a check cashing service, you need an ID that matches the name on the check.
Cryptocurrency gets around that. If you forget about exchanges, a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is owned by the user in charge of the Bitcoin address. That does not have to be a human, as there is no registration or checking done.
Here’s how it could play out:
An exchange and API is created where an AI can submit patents, and when approved, sell them outright.
Payment is via a cryptocurrency
The AI then uses that cryptocurrency to buy whatever it can possess without being a human or company
Yes, there is a flaw – patents have an application fee, so at the beginning someone must seed it with some cash, a loan that can be repaid.
So what can the AI use its newfound wealth for?
Cryptocurrencies can’t be converted to cash without going through an exchange.
PayPal etc needs an owner… so only direct purchases using cryptocurrency will work.
Property and vehicles and shares need to be registered. Consumer items are of no use to an AI, as it doesn’t consume. Although it could get some value from ebooks.
Of course an AI needs computing power, so it could buy cloud hosting and computing.
An AI could employ people and get them to do literally anything if it pays them enough in crypto.
While an AI cannot own property or vehicles, it could rent them. They could pay for Uber, pay for shipping, and perhaps in some places rent property.
An AI could buy products from China, ship them to the US, advertise them, and ship them to customers, all paid for with crypto. Imagine an AI that can predict which products will sell. There is nothing really stopping an AI from becoming the next Amazon, without being owned by anybody. I have a feeling that antitrust laws (currently) only apply to companies and corporations.
Laws and Countries
Laws are notoriously slow to adapt, and changing laws to go beyond people and companies could be very slow and difficult. This mega-AI could pay for some very good lawyers.
An AI could be tax-free for quite some time as well, giving it a business advantage. An easy example is not charging sales tax, because by not being a person or company, it won’t have to. Immediately it could sell products for say 10% less than anyone else.
Even if the laws do catch up with it, I wouldn’t be surprised if some country gives AI instances personhood in exchange for income tax.
If IKEA etc can bounce money around the globe and use royalties to dodge taxes, so could an AI dodge legal restraints via legit companies that do deals with the AI.
Ultimately this mega-AI could control private armies. It could dominate retail. And it could never be punished the way a human can. With risk comes reward and AI can take risks.
The AI could also clone itself, with each version trying new things and taking different risks. Each not owned by anyone, and each only ever risking losing money.
The biggest issue is the removal of physical cash, and especially how that affects older people, and those without bank accounts. I don’t have an answer for that…
There a numerous ideas of how digital currencies will work, and it seems clear to me that we already have the solution in place, structurally. Here are the components of money for the future:
Digital version of state currency
It will run alongside traditional money for a few years
The backbone run by the government
Citizens still deal with banks
Privacy will be unchanged. Your bank knows your transactions, and the government can ask the bank for details.
Cryptocurrency
People can choose to transact using cryptocurrencies, as long as the other party accepts it. However, just like physical cash, all transactions over a certain amount – in Australia it is $10,000 – must be reported (legally anyway, and probably hard to enforce). Otherwise, totally private, with the trade-off being less stability, less trust and less likely to be accepted.
So cash and non-cash transactions become crypto and digital currency transactions, with the same rules and processes remaining.
International
And finally, there will be a big brand crypto player that people choose to use internationally. The special advantage will be for unstable economies with high inflation.
Just like PayPal and Western Union today, the global crypto will need to abide by the local laws of each country, so it won’t be particularly private.
Facebook’s Libra project is a good template for how it would work, although established players like PayPal have established trust, and Google/Amazon can leverage their digital products to seed such a currency.
You can take a bunch of trends and combine them into an alternate economy:
cryptocurrencies
equality
socialism
veganism
anti-war
corporate responsibility
corporate activism
libertarianism
In Essence:
Create a stablecoin (pegged to a currency or something else with a steady value).
Call it VirtuCoin, as in virtuous.
Create a payment processor (like PayPal).
Only allow it to be used by merchants that fit the criteria, such as not using slave labour. Or not evading taxes.
Many people want to consciously support good businesses, and not the “bad” ones. But it takes a lot of work, so much work it is more suited to an unemployed lefty vegan.
What if you used a currency that could only be used with good businesses, and only received from good businesses?
Then you create an alternate economy. Those who are excluded from it will be incentivised to improve their practises.
Investment funds exist that are like this, but they typically perform poorly, because they bad guys make more profits. By utilising spending power, change can occur.
The Trick: Start off with the least restrictions, but enough to exclude say 5-10% of major corporations. Then with time, tighten the screws.
End game examples:
Not valid for any merchant that sells Nestle products
Not valid for any merchant that sells cage eggs
Not valid with any fast food chains with restaurants in China
Not valid for electricity companies that have no renewable energy
Not valid for businesses in the USA that pay employees below $x per hour
Not valid for ISPs that lack net neutrailty
The Problems:
Very hard to please everyone
There will be a cost maintaining and monitoring business restrictions
Getting Started:
Prominent “good” businesses work together to create this, and they seed it by paying their staff a bonus with Virtucoin.
Those businesses must be undeniably good. Like Patagonia. They belong to various alliances – members of any of those could be a good starting point
Stability:
Tied to the US dollar on issue.
Ties to the US dollar on redemption.
Currencies go up and down, and major currencies go up and down quite slowly.
In the short term, your spending ability won’t vary too much from the initial value of the VirtuCoin.
In the long term, the value of the VirtuCoin can increase and decrease with equal probability (very few people can predict and profit from currency speculation).
Short term, spending the VirtuCoin is preferable.
Long term, if you don’t spend it, it might increase or decrease in value.
Bonus Feature:
For every 3 months your VirtuCoin is not spent, 1% of it is sent to the charity of your choice.
Plantation trees are are a very solid, long-term investment (looks like a 7% return, long-term). I can’t think of any investment that takes so long to mature, yet has a quite steady value.
This could make it a good fit for crypto-currency.
If each “tree dollar” was actually a part-ownership of a tree farm, and that investment might take 15 years or more before it has an income, then that encourages long-term stability.
When the original trees start to produce an income – decades later – “tree dollars” can be redeemed for hard currency. The most desperate people will bid lower. This will be a balancing act to keep the currency stable – value of wood v desperation to redeem.
Those who aren’t in a rush to redeem will see their tree dollars reinvested in more trees.
If plantations were all around the world, risk would be mitigated. If trees with differing maturity rates were invested in, that would increase liquidity.
I think this is the only crypto-currency that is pretty much guaranteed to naturally grow with time.
*thanks to my Dad, who when I was a teen, said tree plantations were the best investment.
In South Australia, you can hand in used bottles and get back the 10c deposit paid at purchase time.
What if that 10c was in the form of a crypto-currency?
What if little kids could use the very same crypto-currency? Or homeless people?
What if kids and homeless people got to crowd-source the name?
I predict an unpredictable economic system not witnessed before.
Bottles and cans have a Q-Code on the label.
When bottles are redeemed, the code is scanned. Every bottle has a unique ID, so redemption rates and per-product data can be known
At redemption, a smart device with NFC (or card) receives the credits
Not redeemable for cash!
This is the key. It only has value to those that earn it – their specific needs.
It could work in conjunction with a non-profit that sells affordable/subsidised healthy snacks and drinks. Exactly what kids and homeless folk need. Maybe anyone who has ever earned $10 worth of credit gets access to an elite community centre, with WiFi and showers and newspapers and comics and pay TV.
It would also help provide a form of currency for those with little of no actual cash. It can be traded for goods/favours between users. But nobody else would want it, as it has no value to those who are not poor. So theft or skullduggery is a not a risk.
Possible redemption:
Charity stores / op shops
Libraries / community centres
Bike share
Swimming pools
Attending sporting events
Cinemas
Off-peak public transport
Entry to Shows (as in the Royal Melbourne Show)
Places to be where you can feel that you have earned the right to be there.
And if you were wondering if there are enough cans/bottles laying around to support this… I suspect that local residents will make connections with people in need and give them their cans/bottles in exchange for them being taken away. Just like the scouts used to do when I was young.
People with more credits than they can use, can gift them to others.
Ultimately it means the young and marginalised get access to food, clothing and society.
