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Kurt Laitner

New Currency Frontiers: Membrane Currencies - 1 views

blog.newcurrencyfrontiers.com/...membrane-currencies.html

*ericharris-braun

shared by Kurt Laitner on 26 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • This fact, that the boundaries of a membrane are somewhat fuzzy, is particularly interesting because that's exactly what membranes themselves are: boundaries. They are the component of a system that makes it appear to be a separate, complete, and integral system in the context of some environment.
  • Membranes can be seen as that which creates a context, or environment, in which subsystems can be coordinated to into being an integral whole.
  • Membranes are permeable. One of the most important features of any membrane, is exactly the form and shape that it gives to permeability. This permeability, is clearly a mechanism for regulating flows in and out of a system, of coordinating how the inside of the system will see the outside, of limiting/enhancing/controlling/shaping/transforming what gets in and out.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • In some living systems it's very easy to see the membranes as they map one-for-one with the very things we see.
  • Michael realized that for a self-organizing resilient currency network to form, there had to be a self-declared boundary system by which currencies and accounts in those systems could be declared and named, such that they would be visible and known to the entire network, but also such that any such group had it's own autonomy and control within that domain. This is a profound insight: naming is one of the key elements that creates the membrane of the social organism. Names are part of what creates the boundary that make a social organism distinguishable as an independent whole.
  • The flowplace design included the notion of a "circle," which was a way to group users and currencies. The circles were completely separate from the currency network addresses (which we were now calling wallets). We conceived of circles as providing a context for action. So any group that wanted to use free currencies to build wealth together, could come to the flowplace, and start by creating a circle, and a bunch of currencies that it would use to measure it's wealth.
  • When you have such circles, immediately you need to address the "security" questions of who gets to add new members into the circle. And then also the question of who gets to create currencies in a given circle, and so on. So I sat down to code these "administration" features into the flowplace, when it hit me that the meta-currency infrastructure we were using to create the currencies in the flowplace, was exactly what I needed to implement these permissions structures for the circles
  • Well, the meta-currency infrastructure provides a language (XGFL) for creating those formal systems, and in the flowplace I'd already used it to create some trade, performance metric, and reputation currencies.
  • I saw that I could use this same language to specify the permissions that participants of the circle have in regards to the currencies that the circle uses, and that that very specification could simultaneously serve as a naming, i.e. a mapping, between people, currencies and roles in the context of the given circle.
  • we realized that the membrane currency also has a broader naming function in that it is also responsible for creating names for all the currencies in use by the circle, be they currencies that are created by circle for internal use only, or be they currencies created externally. The membrane currency brings such currencies "inside" the circle, by virtue of giving them a local name.
  • It is a membrane, which is the systemic component that both separates and connects the organism from its environment
  • The membrane is not so much a static physical barrier, as it is an active process that mediates between "inside" and "outside."
Kurt Laitner

open money: techne - 0 views

openmoney.info/...overview.html

open money wealth acknowledgement information system

shared by Kurt Laitner on 26 Oct 10 - Cached
  • The Churn Whereas the mesh is the accessible state of the players, their identity and functional relationships as the history of the wealth-acknowledgments between them, the "churn" is the process by which new entities are added to the mesh and by which existing entities become further enmeshed. This "enmeshment" is the result of discrete events. Thus the mesh is the "nouns" of the open money world, whereas the churn is its verbs. There are just a handful of events, and they can be seen as procedure calls with parameters. Create Namespace: parameters: new namespace name, parent namespace Create Account: parameters: new account name, parent namespace Create Currency: parameters: new currency name, currency specification, parent namespace Join Currency: parameters: account, currency Acknowledge Flow: parameters: declaring account, accepting account, flow specification
Kurt Laitner

New Currency Frontiers: Critical to expand perception of Currencies - 0 views

blog.newcurrencyfrontiers.com/...cal-reasons-to-expand-our.html

*alanrosenblith *money *net currency design

shared by Kurt Laitner on 26 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • A currency organizes connections and interactions between groups of people into a kind of collective behavior which creates a kind of living social organism. The design of that currency (the rules about issuance, transaction, conversion/co-function, retirement/expiration, participant classes, governance, etc.) are the DNA of this social organism
  • DNA doesn’t tell us exactly what each individual biological critter will do, but it does define a particular range of possibilities and tendencies
Kurt Laitner

The Financial Services Club's Blog: If banks are like oil, build better vehicles - 0 views

thefinanser.co.uk/...oil-build-better-vehicles.html

*money banking

shared by Kurt Laitner on 10 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Deposit accounts are the core of banking.
  • Summary: no firm and no individual will fundamentally change the core of banking because it is built upon licences, infrastructures, agreements, global policies, governmental forces, regulatory management and more ensuring that the status quo is maintained.
  • which is referenced as social currency, although it’s not really as it starts and ends with the oil: banks and money.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The bottom-line is that as we talk about the weaknesses and failures of the banking system, we are missing the point. The banking system is protected and will take decades to change, because it is like oil refining. That is why none of the services at the core heart of the banking industry: the deposit account, the checking account, the money transmission have opened up to real competition over the years. Even with the mobile and wireless internet. It will ... but that is like changing the oil industry.
  • First you have to find an alternative to oil, then you have to convert everyone off their old vehicles to the new fuel-based alternative. More on that tomorrow.
  • Meanwhile, there is plenty of scope to add functionality and enrichment to the core of banking.
  • So should the focus be on building better tools upon the base of banking, rather than trying to replace the base? Is it better to build more efficient vehicles that run on oil, rather than trying to get rid of oil?
  • Kurt Laitner on 10 Nov 10
     
    an excellent article, making several important points, including the hilighted bits below - very important distinction between 'new' currencies that piggy back on current vs new currencies that fly solo - we all need to be very clear about the game we are playing
Kurt Laitner

The End of Money and the Future of Civilization | Reality Sandwich - 3 views

www.realitysandwich.com/end_money_future_civilization

shared by Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10 - No Cached
  • separation of money and the state
  • Legal tender laws and banking regulations endow the banking cartel with the exclusive power to issue money (as debt), which we are forced to use (through legal tender laws)
  • money evolved as a reaction to the inconveniences of barter.
    • frank smith
      frank smith on 31 Jan 10
       
      Money is not value, it is a symbol of value.
  • ...40 more annotations...
  • Money is a sub-set of exchange, a period in the evolution of exchange systems where exchange was mediated by value representations, either in the form of tangible commodities or instruments of various degrees of abstraction.
  • Exchange is not reducible to money and so when the history of money is abstracted from the history of exchange it appears to be linear, starting with commodity money, evolving through symbolic money, credit money and towards some kind of credit clearing system that Greco says is the highest stage of money.
  • tying knots
  • Nature itself provides all sorts of feedback mechanisms to regulate and control exchange but what is unique about human exchange is that humans developed their own systems to regulate and control it
  • mental
  • clay tablets
  • Exchange is a property of life on earth and not something special or unique to humans
  • tally sticks
  • notched bones
  • earlier form of the mutual credit clearing process
  • an abstract and portable representation of the real values that were being exchanged
  • The problem with "stuff" money is that it can be appropriated
  • It has to be created, distributed and controlled, and these functions always fell into the hands of the powerful who used it to increase their power over the rest of society
  • Today the money power is all-powerful, rendering national governments insignificant
  • Where bank credit is used the monetary output has to be greater than the monetary input because interest has to be paid on top of the principal amount borrowed. Since the difference between the output and the input was not created at loan time, the deficit can only come from further borrowing down the line.
  • This keeps the system in equilibrium as the full proceeds of production go to the producers and are not siphoned off by a parasitic class who play no part in the production/distribution process. The removal of interest from the equation not only removes the parasites, it also removes the expansionary imperative.
  • Greco is not talking about a complementary currency here, but an entirely new exchange system that excludes the financial industry as we know it, central banking, fractional-reserve banking, the political money nexus and everything else that flows from removing the concept of interest from the concept of money.
  • would nation states make sense any more? Currently nations map to the areas where their currencies operate
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      this is somewhat simplistic, not sure it is this simple, but nations are under threat to be sure, not from currency but from a shift from capital to mind as the source of power
    • frank smith
      frank smith on 31 Jan 10
       
      Yep that's the real relevant shift.
  • the lack of an operational measure of value
  • This means the decentralization and democratization of the exchange process.
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      and what of taxation, and our current land based existence?
  • Attempts to undermine that basis would result in class warfare in the form of "currency wars." The ruling class would appeal to its allies in government to quash any attempts to "undermine the economy."
  • In an information-based exchange system when there is a transfer of value from a seller to a buyer there is no agreement between the two and no direct obligation on the part of the buyer to the seller.
  • Another way of putting it is that traders must agree to sell in order to buy and buy in order to sell. Everyone has an obligation to the community to keep their mean balance as close to zero as possible. Clearing is the process of ensuring that balances remain at or near to zero.
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      hmm interesting, not sure I agree, this enforces consumption, value should flow freely and is truly 'social' what does default look like in this situation, is this not a 'banking' function to constrain negative value from becoming more than a party can 'afford', not a zero balance necessarily.. more thought needed
  • As there is no credit in an information-based exchange system and certainly no physical currency, the term "issue" has no meaning as well.
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      no, the issuer is just changed to the community
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      not really buying the straight exchange thing as some will always produce more than they consume, some consumer more than they produce and some will be eve
  • Information can neither be issued nor can it circulate
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      this is interesting, but I'm not sure if denying circulation is a good idea, having the ability to 'transfer balances' may be useful
  • When the exchange system does not have any tangible or symbolic representations of value (i.e. money) but only keeps records of the transfers of value, the concept of "payment" is rendered meaningless
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      if i open my mind this far, my brain might fall out
  • The "payment" here is the settlement of a social obligation, not a direct transfer of value to the seller in recompense.
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      seeems to be standing on his/her head semantically for no apparent benefit
  • who enters the transactions into the system (records them on the computer)?
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      the computer of course
  • Sellers entering transactions is about as revolutionary as mutual credit clearing itself,
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      UoweMe instead of IOU? revolutionary? hmm
  • bad debts
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      how does it rid of us bad debt? the debt becomes mutually insured if you will but can still be unpaid by the particular counter parties
  • As buyers of labour, employers are greatly empowered by the fact that they control the supply of money in their businesses
  • When "employees" are enabled to credit themselves and debit their "employers" they are no longer part of a "workforce" but independent service providers with livelihoods.
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      actually, there are no 'employees' and no 'employers' as these imply durable relationships and a certain measure of exclusivity, both durability and exclusivity will be far more rare
  • The Next Big Thing in Business: A Complete Web-Based Trading Platform
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      HALLELUJAH BROTHER AMEN
  • the money system of today was developed and adapted for the industrial age. It has always been able to generate practically unlimited amounts of credit, especially after it was delinked from limited precious metals.
  • It has also been able to produce more credit than is necessary for normal trading in order to cover the interest requirement.
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      this added layer of leverage is in fact the problem
  • Growth has been possible while there has been the energy to power the growth, but as we enter the downward slope of the peak oil bell-shape and growth becomes more difficult, so it will become increasingly difficult to service the interest requirement. Because interest is contingent on growth, you could say that the "production" of credit also has a bell shape and maps on top of the energy production bell shape. We have thus reached "peak credit'"and "peak interest." This is a dangerous contradiction for a money system that can only work on the upward slope of the energy production curve.
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      don't quite buy this energy -> growth -> interest -> credit argument
  • Until the computer revolution and the advent of the Internet it simply was not possible to have a purely information-based exchange system
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      key point
  • To be successful it requires four basic components: A marketplace A social network A means of payment A measure of value or pricing unit
  • We are not provided with any clues about how this can be achieved, but it is unlikely to be provided by any of the "big players" today or a new startup until one of them is prepared to provide the service without expecting any reward in conventional money.
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      bingo
    • frank smith
      frank smith on 31 Jan 10
       
      I like unconventional...
  • This will require a huge leap of faith because the provider will have to believe that its rewards will come from providing the service alone and not from extraneous sources.
    • Kurt Laitner
      Kurt Laitner on 31 Jan 10
       
      amen
Kurt Laitner

On Voles and Openings « flow - 2 views

eric.harris-braun.com/...id-225

*ericharris-braun flow *money wealth design

shared by Kurt Laitner on 28 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • “A falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest.”
  • Once I’d stepped through, there was no going back, because suddenly I understood three things: 1) money was a human invention 2) this particular invention is foundational to all human social patterns 3) we can change it, and there-by change our social patterns.
  • Namely that 1) money is information, 2) the pattern of flow of that information in relation to communities should be circular, i.e. issued within the community so it would flow around it, not through it as happens with moneys issued outside of communities.  3) That there must be a rich ecology of currencies appropriate to each communities circumstances.  4) That these currencies must exist in the context of a network that emerges out of an interplay between communities of function (what people do together) and communities of identity (how people see and name themselves).
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • He had realized that money is a tool that focuses on building tradable wealth, but that tradable wealth is just a small subset of measurable wealth, which itself is a subset of acknowledgeable wealth.
  • But it wasn’t until I came to understand Art’s deeper definition of currency, as “current-see” or formal information systems that allows us to see and interact with currents, flows, that the things really came together.  These different levels of wealth, corresponding to the levels of systemic integrity, also needed corresponding currency types, to manage the different types of flow that are taking place at those different systemic levels.
  • wanted to build a generalized “wealth acknowledgement” system.
  • Regenerosity, which used the idea of laying down what amounted to a social network graph to record the changing relationships in a community, which is essentially what monetary transaction are.
  • But what I realized, is that money is still very concrete, and just like pictographic writing. It’s not abstract at all because all moneys so far use the same encoding mechanism they always have for value: relative scarcity (just like all pictograms use the same encoding mechanism for meaning: shape)  And that encoding mechanism is only really appropriate for tradable wealth where scarcity is a true for parts and products of systems.  It’s not appropriate for the wider levels of wealth.  What I saw is that we have no “alphabet” for encoding all the levels of value, and that’s what the open money system I’d been working on could evolve into.
  • It appears that the greatest leaps in “novelty,” i.e. increased possibility that we know of, all arise because of the emergence of new embodied information encoding systems, what I like to call “expressive capacities”.
  • Our current day money is to that new expressive capacity as the coordinating hunting grunts of some proto-hominids is to language.
  •  What we can it evolve toward, is, for the lack of a better term, a language of flow.  
  • Expressive capacities are all built out of fairly simple nested composable units.
  •  The rules for composability at each level are fairly simple, yet the variety of that which is expressible is infinite because of the combinatorial explosion.  
  • a small vocabulary of composable parts, mixable with definite meaningful grammatics.  
  • “Composition requires creation of a negative space, i.e. receptors for an as of yet unknown interaction.”
  • Kurt Laitner on 28 Jan 12
     
    excellent romp through the issues
Kurt Laitner

New Currency Frontiers: Reputations - 6 views

blog.newcurrencyfrontiers.com/...reputations.html

reputations trust domain context metacurrency

shared by Kurt Laitner on 05 Feb 10 - No Cached
  • Jack Logan on 05 Feb 10
     
    It's going to be a whaacy world out there!
  • fishead ...*∞º˙ on 05 Feb 10
     
    more about reputation...seems like a recurring theme...
  • Kurt Laitner on 05 Feb 10
     
    it's right after attention and trust on the list of dimensions of Value - incidentally these metacurrency project guys are looking at dimVals as being each represented by a currency, and then providing a currency exchange (which is transformation of value) a little different from the econ models i've been talking about but not much
Kurt Laitner

THE BITCOIN BUBBLE - Global Guerrillas - 0 views

globalguerrillas.typepad.com/...the-bitcoin-bubble.html

*johnrobb *net *money bitcoin

shared by Kurt Laitner on 07 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • On the bitcoin issue. Governments will be trying to find a way to stop these alternate currencies or discredit them. Its a necessity to them as alternate currencies leave the nation state very vulnerable to "starve the monkey" attacks and lowers the cost of non cooperation for ordinary people. A first salvo by Charles Schumer http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110605/22322814558/senator-schumer-says-bitcoin-is-money-laundering.shtml The currency monopoly is essentially the basis of the modern state and easy systems that allow opt out, either for smaller areas (Dakota Bits now backed by Gold or Troy Bucks or something ) can happen at a time when a government is bankrupt and basically disable that state. Now it rationally might not be in anyones rational best interest to do this (millions of hungry people can result in a apocalypse) that certainly won't stop anyone.
Kurt Laitner

browsearth | and SEE! - 1 views

browsearth.drupalgardens.com

browsearth *benbrownell currency

shared by Kurt Laitner on 06 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Kurt Laitner on 06 Jul 12
     
    prezi has an interesting area (off path) on currency
Kurt Laitner

Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs - 0 views

www.atimes.com/...ML22Dj03.html

*money history of *chrisjcook profit to payer

shared by Kurt Laitner on 21 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • private banks create credit on the basis of a cushion of capital specified by the Bank of International Settlements in Basel, and this credit created out of thin air is exchanged for interest-bearing Treasury debt
  • The only constraint on credit creation is now the capital cushion that banks must hold to cover defaults by borrowers and operating costs
  • Tax has never in 800 years in the UK been collected and then spent
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • The truth of it is that tax-payers' money has never been anywhere near a tax-payer
  • fund that expenditure through the unnecessary issue and sale of interest-bearing debt to private banks, and through taxation
  • Public spending on credit came first, and when stock was returned in payment of taxation this credit/money was retired.
  • I believe that the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008 will come to be seen as the definitive end of the centralized, but connected, Economy 2.0 paradigm operated by and for the profit of middlemen.
  • there has been a parallel series of innovations in legal vehicles for investment in productive assets, involving trust law and partnership law, rather than company law
  • In my home turf of the oil market, all the signs are that in the absence of massive new flows of quantitative easing dollars from the Federal Reserve, and/or substantial cuts in oil production, especially from members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, there will be a collapse in oil market prices in the first quarter of 2012. Indeed, some market participants have already taken option positions in the oil market in anticipation (or in fear) of a fall in the oil price as low as $45 per barrel in 2012.
  • Owners of productive assets simply create and issue undated credits/units that are redeemable in payment for the use of the asset. For example $1.00's worth of rental revenues pre-sold for 80 cents will give an absolute return of 25%, but the rate of return depends - literally - upon the rate at which units of stock may be returned to the issuer and redeemed against use.
  • users of productive assets such as occupiers will always buy stock at a price less than face value in order to redeem it against use.
  • My vision of a 21st century "Open Capitalism" is of new forms of stock based upon land rentals which will come to be what are essentially networked land-based national currencies created literally from the ground up.
  • Open capital - Stock may in fact be seen as currency sold forward at a wholesale discount
Kurt Laitner

How Fake Money Saved Brazil : Planet Money : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...how-fake-money-saved-brazil

brazil inflation real

shared by Kurt Laitner on 18 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Kurt Laitner on 18 Oct 10
     
    I have a feeling that moving away from scarce currencies will need to be accomplished in a similar manner, and there is still the not small issue of financing governments when value exchange goes off the grid
Kurt Laitner

The Core of MetaCurrency: Composable Abstractions for Wealth Building | The MetaCurrenc... - 0 views

metacurrency.org/...stractions-for-wealth-building

composable abstractions metacurrency.org *ericharris-braun currency design *net *money

shared by Kurt Laitner on 26 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • "What would it take to make currencies as powerful for building and sharing wealth, as language is for building and sharing meaning?"  
  • The answer to that question, I believe, lies in discovering/inventing a set of composable abstractions for wealth building
  • Notice a pattern in each of these layers of composable abstractions: a set of fairly tight constraints allows the production of a huge number of "expressions."
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • It was developed before we had really spent much time thinking about the four opens (Transport, Identity, Data, Rules),
Kurt Laitner

Tribler - 0 views

www.tribler.org/trac

*money *net exchange

shared by Kurt Laitner on 15 Nov 10 - Cached
  • Kurt Laitner on 15 Nov 10
     
    bandwidth as currency among p2p participants
fishead ...*∞º˙

Dark Roasted Blend: Funny Money: Unusual and Fascinating Currency - 2 views

www.darkroastedblend.com/...y-unusual-and-fascinating.html

money

shared by fishead ...*∞º˙ on 01 Feb 10 - No Cached
  • Graphical Marvels, Forged Notes, Hyperinflation "Riches" and Propaganda Bed Sheets"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value - zero." (Voltaire, 1694-1778)World's historical bank notes often provide the clearest and unique view on country's political and design sensibilities. For example, old Russian Empire bank notes were pretty elaborate and some of the largest in size:
  • The world’s oldest known banknote The earliest recorded use of paper money is in China around 800 AD, although the Chinese abandoned paper money in the mid fifteenth century. This Chinese Kuan note is the world’s oldest known banknote, from around 1380.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • For richer, or for poorer... collecting money is what most people do, or strive to do, anyway:
  • fishead ...*∞º˙ on 01 Feb 10
     
    what does internet money look like today? An iTunes gift card, perhaps?
  • Jack Logan on 06 Feb 10
     
    I gave more of these away at Christmas than any other gift! I got mine at Costco!
  • frank smith on 12 Feb 10
     
    haven't you guys seen the commercials?? it's Visa, the digital currency....
Kurt Laitner

NFC: Never Mind Credit Cards, Pay With Your Phone - 0 views

www.readwriteweb.com/..._cards_pay_with_your_phone.php

cell phones

shared by Kurt Laitner on 11 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Kurt Laitner on 11 Apr 10
     
    a complement to alternate currency methods, the phone will allow the exchange of currencies other than traditional scarce money
Kurt Laitner

Visa Lets People Use Plastic to Pay One Another - ABC News - 2 views

abcnews.go.com/...wireStory

*money *net

shared by Kurt Laitner on 17 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Kurt Laitner on 17 Mar 11
     
    person to person payments, although, sadly, through visa, and cash only (no alt currencies expected from this source)
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