Skip to main content

POST Think global act local, currency edition

xxx

Three of the country’s four largest parties – the Five Star Movement, the Northern League and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia – have proposed introducing a new currency following an election scheduled for next year.

From Three Of Italy's Top Four Political Parties Seek A New Parallel Currency | Zero Hedge

A couple of years ago, I had lunch with the Northern League to discuss digital currencies and the potential for local and community currencies to spring up because of the decentralising nature of new technology. I was in Rome to take part in a hearing about Bitcoin in the Italian Parliament organised by my good friend Geronimo Emili from No Cash Day and was invited to the lunch as part of the day. As Geronimo is a PR wizard, there is of course a photo album of the day online.

Naturally I told them that the era of fiat currencies was coming to an end, that in the future economies would be city-centric and that communities would develop currencies that embedded their own values. The usual stuff, discussed at greater length in Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin (available at all good bookstores).

I wasn’t there to reflect on their politics, of course. But I must note that new technology makes the potential for community currencies widely available and therefore it will inevitability impact politics. Suppose the people of Catalonia decide to start using their own currency and ignore the euro? What if Milan and its hinterland switches to its own currency and you have to have it in order to pay taxes?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

new survey results from USA Technologies (USAT) suggest. The payments technology company, which enables electronic payments for self-service machines, compared consumer spending activity at 35 of its vending machines in urban areas with a high concentration of iPhone users between week one and week four of the installation of new digital signage promoting Apple Pay. Consumers made more contactless purchases: The vending machine providers saw an average contactless transaction revenue increase of 89%, implying that consumers are making more mobile payments. This was likely driven by the clear advertisement of Apple Pay. Total transactions increased: Consumers made more purchases overall. This was probably driven by an uptick in mobile payments, given the major increase in contactless transaction revenue. And the vending machines may have attracted many first-time users who were drawn in by the digital advertising of Apple Pay. Boosting awareness is key to unlocking pent-up demand amon...
Post a Comment
Read more

David | LinkedIn

Alex Todd rather kindly called this a “most lucid explanation of digital identity management” I would highly recommend this presentation to anyone interested in understanding prospective blockchain based identity architectures From David | LinkedIn This is very kind, but as I said in the link, this is thinking out loud and far from a fully-developed solution. We’re working on parts of this for different clients and I can see that there is something there - a genuinely new way of solving some old problems - but it’s early days.
Post a Comment
Read more

Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force

Forum friend Ian Grigg, who I always take very seriously indeed on any such topic, wrote about Corda on his blog and concluded with a powerful statement. Bitcoin told the users it wanted an unstoppable currency - sure, works for a small group but not for the mass market. Ethereum told their users they need an unstoppable machine - which worked how spectacularly with the DAO? Not. What. We. Wanted. Corda is the only game in town because it's the only one that asked the users. It's that simple. From Financial Cryptography: Corda Day - a new force xxx It seems to me, however, what Ian is pointing to as the greatest strength of their approach is also the greatest weakness. A staple feature of unimaginative management consultants presentations about innovation is some variation on the statement by Henry Ford that if you had asked users what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses coupled with some variation on the statement by Steve jobs that it was pointless ask...
Post a Comment
Read more