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 Andre Coelho | Jun 8, 2017 | News
Kerry Frank, a consultant in research and analysis for Mondato, has recently written an article discussing the relation between basic income, government institutions and cryptocurrencies. A cryptocurrency is a digital currency that uses cryptography for security. Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are decentralized systems based on blockchain technology, information on which can be found over on VanillaCrypto.com. A lot of people use Bitcoin to trade stocks and shares online, as over the years, it has become a popular way to increase your income. Most people decide to look into cryptocurrency by visiting a trading site, yet others make the decision to look for something like this “used innosilicon a10 pro” to create their own digital currency and then selling them to the many sites. It could be a great way to be able to get stuck into the process of cryptocurrency. That being said, if you’d like to find out more about cryptocurrency trading, then researching trading applications such as the bitcoin revolution app could help you to further your knowledge of this growing field.
In the article, she argues that progression towards a basic income is only possible with a “comprehensive digitization across the board to manage administration and monitoring costs”. This is required on a global scale, since digitization has covered more ground in the Global North than in the Global South. For example, only 50% of all adult individuals globally have a registered bank account, according to the World Bank.
The article also points out that cash transfer programs, for example in India and Kenya, bring about increases in individuals’ willingness to take on loans, make savings or invest. Recent data from the GiveDirectly test pilot already shows that financial inclusion is a welcomed side-effect, since many participants would not have joined formalized financial networks if not for the experiment.
It is argued that cryptocurrencies are a viable means to disburse cash payments on a massive scale. Actually, this possibility has been presented and discussed before, in several articles. One such systems is Resilience, which uses redistribution and dividend pathways as a defining programming feature. However, only a few people are knowledgeable enough to use such a system, and even fewer who may understand its internal workings, as Kerry Frank also raises in her article. This constitutes, of course, a barrier to basic income implementation in a cryptocurrency version. For now, the cryptocurrency takeover of the world’s financial system is on hold. However, this could mean investing in cryptocurrency might still be lucrative to those aiming to take a slice of the pie in the near future.
Kerry concludes that cryptocurrencies and traditional government programs (of cash distribution) need not be mutually exclusive, while there are advantages and challenges with both approaches.
More information at:
Kerry Frank, “Universal Basic Income: G2P on steroids or an opening for cryptocurrencies?“, Mondato, April 25th 2017
J. Shapiro, “Can cash transfer programs help bring about financial inclusion?“, Microfinance Gateway, April 2017
Austin Douillard, “US/Kenya: New study published on results of basic income pilot in Kenya“, Basic Income News, March 27th 2017
Cameron McLeod, “BitNation: Recent advances in cryptocurrency see basic income tested“, Basic Income News, March 30th 2017
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 Tyler Prochazka | Jan 8, 2017 | Opinion
While many basic income advocates concentrate on shifting government policy, some in the tech world are taking the fight into their own hands.
Cyrptocurrencies have the potential to dramatically disrupt the government system of fiat issued currency. When new money is created, some cryptocurrencies are planning to distribute the dividend as a basic income to its members. This is a very exciting time because cryptocurrencies are completely separate from the government and the more it becomes mainstream, the more people are investing in it. Many investors are looking to comprar bitcoin (BTC) for their long-term investments because they can only see the prices of the cryptocurrency to increase. Many are interested in investing in it, and instead of jumping straight in they are rightly researching some useful tips from xCoins and other online sites on how to invest in it properly, successfully and safely.
However, despite this positive potential outcome people are still nervous about doing it all digitally and with their money, luckily now there are VPNs that can be put in place here that can keep traders’ privacy safe and secure if they so choose to do it. It’s not just Bitcoin that’s making big waves in the crypto industry. Reading up online resources about investing in cryptocurrencies could be a good place to start. Someone looking to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum could also look up a few great review of crypto exchanges on the internet.
Duniter (formerly known as uCoin) is helping to push this monetary revolution. Duniter would evenly distribute all of the money created, potentially even on a daily basis, to add up to 10 percent growth each year.
One of the lead developers of Duniter, Gaël, said he was inspired by the basic income after the financial crisis in 2008, when he realized something was wrong with the global economic system.
“We needed a system that would let people create without having to prove to the institutions, be it the banks, or the state, that what they were doing was useful,” Gaël said.
The full interview can be found below:
1. What is your involvement in Duniter? What is your background?
My name is Gaël and I’m known as “inso” in the Duniter project. I am the Lead Developer of Sakia, a desktop client for Duniter networks.
I am an engineer in Software and Systems. I have been working as part of the Duniter team in my free time for 3 years. At the beginning, I was building the only client existing on Duniter network, so that advanced users could see and test it for real. I gave cgeek (the founder of Duniter) some feedback about his developments and the API (a set of functionality for the developers) of the Duniter network. Our goal at this moment is to help more developers to contribute to the project, by testing and working with us.
Apart from the technical stuff, I communicate about the project as much as I can on Twitter and diaspora (inso@framasphere.org). I translate our French articles into English on our blog. I try to explain what we are doing and why : what are the problems with modern money systems (debt-money, crypto-currencies, etc.) and what we are trying to fix by developing Duniter.
2. What inspired you to get involved in this project ?
I grew up with the Internet and I have always been passionate about the decentralized aspect of it.
When the 2008 financial crisis hit the planet, I suddenly realized that something was inherently wrong in modern economics. I discovered that if banks disappeared with their debts, the common money we were using would disappear with them. The banking system was too important — “Too Big To Fail”. At the same time, the Universal Basic Income was starting to become a real topic on the social networks. Automation was going to replace a lot of manual jobs really fast, what is called “Disruption” today. We needed a system that would let people create without having to prove to the institutions, be it the banks, or the state, that what they were doing was useful. Because if the society was not agile enough to adapt, social crisis were going to hit soon or later.
This is where I discovered the Relative Theory of Money (Here in French or here for a basic English translation). This theory describes a money which is issued by every individuals, using a symmetric distribution in space and time. It means it is decentralized and growing regularly. There is no one who has the power of money issuance on others. It understands the fact that nobody can definitively say what is valuable, and so it is respectful to what humans want to do with their own life.
A first crypto-currency project began, called Open-UDC. But it was complicated and I did not understood exactly how it would work. This is were cgeek forked Open-UDC by creating what was called by then uCoin, now Duniter. He used technologies I could understand, and it was based on concepts which were proven to work (Web of Trust, Blockchains), so I was willing to work with him.
3. What is the goal of Duniter ?
The Duniter project wants to create a Libre Money, as defined by the Relative Theory of Money. A Libre Money is issued as a Universal Dividend, which is a percentage of the existing monetary mass, shared to all the money members. For a Libre Money to issue a valuable Universal Dividend, it will need a lot of users. We would like the first Libre Money to be issued by 1 million to 10 million users. So Duniter has to be easy enough to use and secure enough to be trusted.
4. How does Duniter work ?
The Duniter network is decentralized. It is using a blockchain to synchronize the money state across its nodes. As opposed to Bitcoin, there is no power race in Duniter. In Bitcoin, because of the CPU race, the power is given to the ones who own the more computing power. In Duniter, it is democratic; because every user is identified as a unique human, they can write in the blockchain in turns. Simply put, each node is associated to a member of the money. When a member writes data in the blockchain, he has to wait before being able to write again. This is what ensures that the blockchain does not end in the hand of a few users, and that it does not burn too much energy.
To identify users, Duniter makes the choice of a self-regulated system by its own members. This is the Web of Trust. Each member can certify new users. When a user receives enough certifications and is not too far away from the existing members in the web of trust, he becomes a member.
For example, if I certified cgeek and that cgeek certifies you, your distance from me is two steps. This distance is checked with all the members of the Web of trust, and if it is below a given limit, let’s say four or five, you join the web of trust and start to issue your own Universal Dividend. Simple as that!
5. How much of a basic income does Duniter include for each member ?
Duniter issues around 10 percent of new money each year. This new money is shared to all the members. The rhythm can be faster: for example, we can issue every day 0.026 percent of new money, and at the end of the year, it will be a growth of 10 percent.
Ten percent is not a number chosen randomly. It respects the symmetry in time. If a new user join the Duniter network in 35 years, he will start to issue the Universal Dividend at the same speed as we did before. Ten percent is calibrated so that in half a human life, 40 years, you create the same share of the monetary mass as every members did before. One should not be privileged and create a bigger share of money during his life just because he joined Duniter earlier or later.
6. What are the reasons Duniter is utilizing a basic income and how did the team first get introduced to the basic income concept?
I think most of the team discovered Basic Income before reading about the Relative Theory of Money. One of the biggest debate within basic income community is “how much should we give to individuals?”
The Relative Theory of Money demonstrate that to consider individuals equals and free, a money has to be issued symmetrically between individuals, in space and time. It means that it has to be issued by a Basic Income called Universal Dividend.
Yoland Bresson (an early advocate and participant in the Basic Income Earth Network), who wrote the preface of the Relative Theory of Money, is the author of the theory of “Time-Value”. Interesting enough, both theories, applied to the euro-zone, result in almost the same Universal Basic Income amount.
Another interesting thing is the Theorem of equivalence between a Libre Money and a Universal Basic Income. This demonstration states that a Universal Dividend, based on money issuance, is strictly equivalent to a Universal Basic Income based on a tax with a lower issuance rate of money. Basically, issuing 10 percent of new money each year is strictly the same as issuing three percent of new money and taxing seven percent of every accounts. But the Occam’s razor principle states that the simpler a system is, the better. The Universal Dividend is really simple: no taxation is required, no administration is necessary to check for the redistribution. It is only about issuing new money. And it is strictly equivalent to a Universal Basic Income! You can analyze on the website of cuckooland how it works (in french).
7. How many members does Duniter currently have and what is the utilization rate? What have the trends been so far?
Our current testing money is issued at the rhythm of 10 percent per day. This is huge because we do not want this money to take any value: we are just using it to test Duniter network. This money currently has 200 members. This is pretty good for a test. We have seen a growing interest for Duniter recently. In France we are doing events every six months to work on Duniter and find new contributors. More and more people are coming each time, so this is really encouraging.
We will start a new test money at the beginning of January, called “GTest”, and then the first real money, calibrated at 10 percent growth a year, will be started. We expect a lot of people to register at this time. For the first time in history, we will be able to create our own Universal Basic Income without having to wait for governments and banks to understand its importance!
by Tyler Prochazka | Dec 21, 2016 | Opinion
With the emergence of cryptocurrencies (digital money) as an alternative to traditional cash, there has been
discussion about how new currencies can be used to implement a Universal Basic Income.
Some crytopcurrency startups, such as
uCoin (now Duniter), automatically distribute a basic income dividend to all of its verified members, thereby slightly growing the monetary base but in an egalitarian way.
Author Duke Johnson said because they rely on internet and electricity, these digital currencies are not easy enough for mainstream adoption and as of now are not “appropriate for UBI.”
Johnson has a slightly different system in mind for a currency: Creator Currency Octaves. He has
written about how a Universal Basic Income of a “complementary currency” can “protect a currency from pitfalls of hyper-inflation” and has said it would also “put a real price on everything.”
He explains the complementary currency would be enough to cover basic necessities, but would also expire.
“Those who join a Creator Collective could accept active or expired Basic Bucks as rewards (and of course dollars/euros/gold/whatever) but depending on the level of their work and their individual Creator Octave, they would be able to exchange Basic Bucks for dollars at an elevated level, say 1.5x or even 4 dollars for 1 Basic Buck,” Johnson said.
“This would put both a supply and demand onto Basic Bucks into any system, without negatively altering the primary currency, and still providing incentive for people to work for collective projects and do great innovative or artistic work.”
For Johnson, the push for this new system is about making a fairer society.
“I want to participate in a fair system, where children don’t starve, and I’d like to see poverty eliminated in my lifetime,” Johnson said.
The full interview with Duke Johnson can be found below:
1. You said in “CurrentSea X-Change” that “A function of UBI would put a real price on what everything”. What did you mean by this, and how would basic income accomplish that?
For UBI, I feel financial freedom is true independence, and of course, with freedom, that which UBI could provide, people will be free to follow their passion instead of a paycheck.
When I mention that this system could put a real price on what everything is truly worth, including time, I’m speaking to the affect that manufactured scarcity places upon economics, where the current central banking system has far too much influence on what things cost, as opposed to what they should cost. One example, in the USA, the average price of a house in the 1970s cost ~8k hours of minimum wage work. Today, the average price is ~45k hours of min wage work. Therefore, a generation ago, life was affordable, but today low income people can typically only get by with debt and/or government assistance.
2. How would a basic income challenge our current economic system and expose its “flaws”?
If people didn’t have to work for housing/food/utilities, would they still be willing work a 40-50 hour/week job to afford, say, a new car every 2 years? If not, the car companies would likely lower their prices. Similarly, people would be in a better position to refuse jobs they dislike, therefore the cost of all labor would balance upon what people deem fair compensation, as opposed to what they’re forced to accept due to desperation in the current system.
Some other flaws UBI could expose in the current systems are the problems with disproportionate “making vs taking.” Today, Wall St. investors typically don’t actually make anything, except everything more expensive. If Creative Currency Octaves came into play, the people being rewarded would be the artistic creators and developers within a collective, as opposed to people making millions and billions from interest/dividends/ownership.
3. What is the appeal of implementing universal basic income?
Poverty elimination is the best reason to introduce UBI, and when people don’t have to work to support a family, that reduces stress from a population, which in turn could free people from the chains of debt servitude. I also argue that placing property ownership back into the people’s hands and away from institutions, would have a major balancing affect on communities in a positive way.
4. What is your view of cryptocurrencies as a way to distribute basic income?
As far as crypto-currencies go, I’m in favor of new ways to transfer money online that are secure and takes power away from central banks, however BlockChains rely on electricity and a functioning internet connection, which is a potential downfall. When people can buy lunch on the go as easily with BlockChain as with cash, then there will be a monetary revolution. Ultimately, mainstream money transfer is all about ease, which is why cash is king and credit/debit cards are more prevalent today. Of course it takes millions/billions of investment and decades to implement what visa/mastercard/debit cards have achieved in safe payment solutions, but again cash is the simplest for everyday purchases. BlockChain may become easier for large transactions than card/bank services, and of course cash can’t be transferred online, so I think BlockChain will prove it’s worth to the masses in the near future, though I don’t think it’s appropriate for UBI, unless as an option to be offered instead of, say, a monthly reloaded debit card.
5. What appeals to you about basic income and how did you get interested in the movement?
In conclusion, my efforts are focused on UBI through generating awareness of the system I’ve put forth- Creator Currency Octaves and a UBI of a complementary currency- that both protects the primary currencies and provides an incentive for workers/creators to innovate and still participate in the economy.
In my view, this system:
1) negates all arguments against Basic Income
2) can’t be claimed as unfair, because it works for all citizens
3) is the best way to introduce UBI into an existing monetary system
4) balances economic power away from profit-above-all institutions and towards a creative, innovating, and artistically eager populous
5) can eliminate poverty
It’s my goal to help create a future where college grads follow their passion as opposed to a paycheck, artists actualize their dream projects without a producer limiting their creativity, and people power trumps the power of financial desperation leveled upon communities like an economic weapon. I want to live in a city where parents don’t have to explain to their kids why people are homeless starving on the street in an era of exceeding abundance. I don’t want to enable those who inherit wealth to exploit those who have unmet basic needs. Ultimately, I want to participate in a fair system, where children don’t starve, and I’d like to see poverty eliminated in my lifetime.
