by Guest Contributor | Jul 24, 2017 | Opinion
Written by: Mark McCarron, Pheonix Digital Currency
Phoenix Digital Currency is a new, open, peer-to-peer, cryptocurrency, which will be entering full release in the next few months. Similar to Bitcoin, in that anyone can set up a client/server, we’re quite different from other cryptocurrencies at the same time. Our currency is pegged to the dollar, has a fixed valuation, is anonymous and comes with advanced anti-theft features.
It has also been designed with the needs of enterprises and retailers in mind, both to provide consistent pricing and easy integration into existing environments. We don’t, however, see this as the be-all and end-all of how currencies can function. When Bitcoin first emerged, it showed the world that currencies could evolve. This is how we see Phoenix Digital Currency and we have planned for this from the outset.
When looking at the issue of Universal Basic Income, we were quick to understand that governments cannot afford this. Where does the money come from? Taxes on the rich, more public debt or simply loans? None of these seems very likely, but the AI revolution is almost here and we need options before people are unemployed in large numbers.
One idea that Phoenix Digital Currency has been exploring is a single underlying currency option. Whilst on the surface you would have your nation’s respective currency, behind the scenes, it would be part of a single, broader currency. A universal currency is one that is not traded as a commodity, it is merely branded differently within each nation. This means that currency cannot devalue, as devaluation must occur with respect to something.
Why is this important? Well, let’s say I wanted to print off $50 million for everyone on the planet and offer them $500,000 per year. With currency as a commodity we can’t do that, as no one would view our currency as having worth. But with a single underlying currency, there is no one to convince.
Inflation and demand are the next big issues. Normally this idea would fall flat here, but with AI almost upon us, the cost of labour to business will remain fairly flat rather than increasing to ridiculous levels as businesses try to tempt employees back to work. A fast food burger won’t suddenly cost $1 million because staff are looking for $100,000 per hour.
This means that we can achieve the goals of a Unified Basic Income in a manner which doesn’t burden the taxpayer. In fact, it is even possible to end taxation altogether as a principle of economics.
This has been a short introduction to an idea, known as ‘Formal Proposal Number One’. Please join us at phoenixdigitalcurrency.com to share your ideas.
All features articles are opinion pieces, and express opinions not endorsed by Basic Income Earth Network or Basic Income News.
by Cameron McLeod | Mar 30, 2017 | News
Johan Nygren, a basic income activist, is currently exploring if basic income can be implemented using cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency are digital currencies whose value and number of units are regulated by encryption techniques, outside of any central banking system. Understandably, not everyone is going to have a clear idea as to what cryptocurrency is all about, but this is why sites like cryptoexchangespy.com exist. Doing a bit of research is better than doing none at all, especially when it comes to something as interesting digital currency.
If this is something that you are interested in then you can find out how to buy cryptocurrency here.
You might also have heard about Ethereum. Put simply, Ethereum is a global, decentralized platform for money and other applications. Using Ethereum – a block chain network – you can write code that controls money, and build applications accessible anywhere in the world.
Currently, cryptocurrencies can be used as a means of payment in various spheres. Additionally, freelancers who work in digital industries also accept cryptocurrency as a means of payment. If you’d like find out more information about becoming or hiring ethereum freelancers, the Freelance For Coins is a useful resource that can put you into contact with freelancers where you are.
A cryptocurrency-based basic income will be funded with taxes grown within a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. P2P is an architecture for building computer networks that’s focus is on equality and sharing among peers, each user consuming and supplying information to the network. Nygren’s experiment aims to use decentralized ‘swarms’ of users to distribute a basic income through what Nygren calls ‘dividend pathways’.
A dividend pathway is “the world’s first peer-to-peer financial security,” where every transaction opens up a pathway, to a global network of connected users. RES, Nygren’s crypto-currency, is then shared through a branching scheme with all who are connected to the pathways – those on the BitNation network. The branching scheme is analogous to our network of veins, pumping information instead of blood. With the growing interest in cryptocurrency continuing, this type of scheme will give more opportunities to businesses who wish to use cryptocurrency to pay employees. Business owners can check out these Interesting Bitcoin Statistics in 2020 to not only learn more about all available digital currencies but how they compare against bitcoin, before testing this new P2P model.
This model tests whether a network can electronically divert income to users, in this case using a small tax levied on financial purchases and exchanges made over a system called BitNation; the process is called Swarm Redistribution. Nygren writes that “the whole experiment is public, transparent, auditable, [and] includes a close-down switch in case a bug is discovered.”
BitNation, a Decentralized Borderless Voluntary Nation (DBVN), provides public services to its naturalized citizens. As a virtual jurisdiction, the main difference from traditional governments is voluntary allegiance to its constitution – membership is open to anyone and involvement limited only by the user. As a blockchain-based structure, government activities are transparent. Its mission, according to founder Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof, is to “get rid of geographical apartheid” and offer “better and cheaper governance services.”
Nygren’s swarm redistribution theory assumes that ongoing transactions with the crypto-currency RES will infuse BitNation’s cybereconomy with a branchwork (think the blood analogy) of paid-forward value additions. This would mean extracting essentially a value-added tax (VAT) along the way and pooling a coffer for the basic incomes’ distribution. The model theorizes that growth is incentivized by the desire for personal return and altruism, or a desire to contribute to social resilience (more information can be found here).
BitNation’s current population of nearly five thousand users with roughly fifty thousand daily transactions involving the cryptocurrency ETH could eventually provide the structure for a basic income for its users.
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by Josh Martin | Oct 25, 2015 | News
Nygren believes a Bitcoin-driven basic income is a distinct possibility and he invites others to join his community that is trying to implement such an idea.
Johan Nygren, “The Next Wave of Basic Income Activism: Distributed Safety Nets”, Medium, 26 March 2015.
