Free Currencies: the next global currency system

In one sentence

Launch the next currency system for humanity: a distributed platform for millions of free currencies to flow through the Net and our cell phones.

In more depth

Money is an information system. It's made to measure and balance flows in the real world. Money needs not to be scarce otherwise it turns the world into artificial scarcity, even when it's abundant. Money should be in right supply to account flows so that every marketplaces in the world -- companies, neighborhoods, towns, regions, global communities, etc -- can grow their wealth (all levels of Maslow pyramid) without constraints.

Money is about to follow the same path the media did these past years. Millions of free currencies will soon circulate on the Net and through our cell phones. They will not be controlled by states or central banks, they will be issued by those millions of marketplaces willing to free themselves from conventional debt-based, interest-based money (85% to 95% circulating today). Everyone will issue and use these free currencies simply because most people and organizations are undermonetized.

Dotcoms (eBay, Google...) will likely be the first to understand that their real business model stands in this new paradigm rather than the old scarcity model in which they grew.

The Free Currencies Project consists in creating the open global interoperable infrastructure for these millions currencies to be easily issued and put in circulation, in a peer-to-peer way. It is aimed become the next planetary tool for accounting, transacting and hoarding wealth. It will belong to the commons, it's open source. It will be easy to use via computers and cell phones, making it accessible to the most part of humanity. Like email it will work peer-to-peer via servers, domain names and accounts (MyName^LocalCurrency.usa.ny.albany ; MyName^EthicalMarket.world, etc) provided by community currency service providers (CCSP).

User interfaces will be sexy, user friendly and irresistible. Think 'Skype' as a inspiration for the simplicity of the user experience and the viral model.

What problem or issue does it address?

Most people, most marketplaces are undermonetized. Conventional money does not allow full market potential to be reached, marketplaces cannot fulfill their capacity to exchange and build wealth. Offer and demand are not met not because of a lack of wealth (competencies, time, resources, energy, people are there...) but only because of a lack of transactional tool.

Conventional money self-aggregates in the hands of the few (Pareto law of condensation – the more you have, the more you invest, the more you get) it leaves other economic areas empty. We call this phenomenon 'undermonetization', it creates artificial pauperization.

Consequences are:
* concentration of power (undemocratic)
* poverty, violence, harsh competition, predatory behaviors
* natural resources unnaturally drawn from undermonetized places to places of concentrated money
* secrecy (don't share what has value, make it scarce)
* artificial rarefaction of what is not scarce (so it can have market value)

The Free Currencies solves this.

Who will benefit the most and how?

The entire humanity:
* human relationships: no more competition and predatory behaviors because of scarce money (let's leave competition to what is really scarce), this shift most human contracts to higher consciousness
* the economy: optimized flows of wealth across the planet at local and global levels because of the right supply of money
* the planet: the incentive to hunt or hoard scarce money by producing useless products sold through illusionary marketing (90% of consumerist market) is deactivated. Less junk production & consumption, an incentive for people to focus on higher meaningful activities, i.e. useful products and services = less pollution and more sustainable projects
* dotcoms: they can now enter in the real open source economy, i.e. generate wealth that is not based on scarcity models

What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground?

The work is already quite advanced. Some key steps:

1. Beta testing on early marketplaces (Q4 2008 and 2009)
2. Achieve the coding
3. Achieve SMS transactions on mobile phones
4. Build the best GUI possible
5. Elaborate viral incentive marketing
6/ Optional: build strategic partnership with telecoms and major dotcoms (if they get it before it's too late)
7. Market release

Objective is to reach millions of users in less than a year. Speed (implementation & market growth) will depend on funding in conventional cash. If no conventional cash we will do it no matter what.

Optimal outcome. How to measure it?

* Most humanity shifts to free currencies, people can easily use their cell phone to make transactions in any of these currencies
* Developing countries realize they don't need conventional money ($ or €) to exist on the international scene.
* A shift in consciousness occurs at planetary level. People realize that most problems (unsustanability, concentration of power and wealth...) existed as an unfoldment of conventional money.
* Banks lose their privilege to issue private credit money but understand the incredible benefit of providing services on these new markets.
* Major dotcoms and telecom players understand their core business relies in free currencies rather than the old model. eBay uses these currencies for its marketplace. Telecoms provide cell phones with built-in interface for free currency transactions. Google takes 1st mover advantage in and provides cutting-edge global currency services.

As a currency is a flow, it is easy to measure the wealth that was generated.