There are two things to remember when discussing 'local currency' (1) the local stuff is only good in that tiny local area or region (2) it's not meant to replace the country's national currency. 'Community currency' fills in the cracks where the dollar leaves off. Re-circulating local currency strengthens the area. It is never designed to replace the dollar. If tomorrow we see 10,000 new local currencies, that will NOT replace the dollar. To answer the article, YES, the future holds many thousands of private/local and digital currencies. Most of these will be backed by precious metal and interchangeable with each other on the basis of weight, many will not be. There are now 6 US States with pending honest money legislation which provides for the State to accepts gold, silver and digital gold as payment for certain taxes and which permits people to save with and use digital gold currency. The issue with government paper money is that they print all they want (you may think your saving account is growing but in reality it can't buy as much), gold preserves value...paper inflation robs citizens of their savings value. That is one of the reasons to push forward for the use of gold and silver alongside the dollar, so everyday people can preserve their lifetime savings/wealth. It's NOT a replacement for the dollar, it's not a competition, it works alongside the $ for those who wish to voluntarily use it. See: http://www.goldmoneybill.org for more info.
Private digital currency, that can be issued by everyday individuals is already on the rise. I have my own currency I pay friends with at http://loom.cc an open source 'value transfer' system. Also see http://www.trubanc.com where you can create your own version of an online bank and allow others to issue private currency. Software is free and OS. The future, is thousands of private digital currencies and local 'community currency' but they will function alongside government legal tender, they do not replace it. Big gov. still needs to build bombs and wage war, they are NOT giving up their free printing press, but YOU as a citizen don't need to get burned each time they up the debt ceiling to pay for a new gov program. Use some gold and silver to preserve your life savings.
Here is our local currency backed by silver, http://www.moneyart.biz/cc-news.html notice this is the first time a local paper currency is denominated by weight. This also translates well into a digital version.
Mark Herpel editor@ccmag.net http://www.twitter.com/dgcmagazine
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Local currency is growing, private digital currency is already huge.
To answer the article, YES, the future holds many thousands of private/local and digital currencies. Most of these will be backed by precious metal and interchangeable with each other on the basis of weight, many will not be. There are now 6 US States with pending honest money legislation which provides for the State to accepts gold, silver and digital gold as payment for certain taxes and which permits people to save with and use digital gold currency. The issue with government paper money is that they print all they want (you may think your saving account is growing but in reality it can't buy as much), gold preserves value...paper inflation robs citizens of their savings value. That is one of the reasons to push forward for the use of gold and silver alongside the dollar, so everyday people can preserve their lifetime savings/wealth. It's NOT a replacement for the dollar, it's not a competition, it works alongside the $ for those who wish to voluntarily use it. See: http://www.goldmoneybill.org for more info.
Private digital currency, that can be issued by everyday individuals is already on the rise. I have my own currency I pay friends with at http://loom.cc an open source 'value transfer' system. Also see http://www.trubanc.com where you can create your own version of an online bank and allow others to issue private currency. Software is free and OS. The future, is thousands of private digital currencies and local 'community currency' but they will function alongside government legal tender, they do not replace it. Big gov. still needs to build bombs and wage war, they are NOT giving up their free printing press, but YOU as a citizen don't need to get burned each time they up the debt ceiling to pay for a new gov program. Use some gold and silver to preserve your life savings.
Here is our local currency backed by silver, http://www.moneyart.biz/cc-news.html notice this is the first time a local paper currency is denominated by weight. This also translates well into a digital version.
Mark Herpel
editor@ccmag.net
http://www.twitter.com/dgcmagazine
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Mark Herpel.
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