Up to your eyeballs in BILLS? try using OPEN MONEY

I knew it was out there. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Open money is simply a medium of payment, a memory that something of value has been passed to another. One person's balance goes up, the other down. So for example suppose two people start with no money at all, so both accounts are at zero. One person then pays another CC10, their balances are now CC-10 and CC+10.

Here's where it's different from traditional money: there is no requirement that that money exists beforehand. It is possible to go into negative and positive without contacting a bank.

So that's it. It's really no more complicated than that. It's just mechanics from here on in, for example paying by phone, smartcard, paper notes, electronic point-of-sale (EPOS), or even SMS.

Main characteristics

• Decentralized: no need for a centralized issuer like a bank, which means no threats from a centralizedpower.


• Free: no interest is practiced because there is no issuer that makes a business of it. The only cost is the one of the infrastructure, which is a flat marginal cost, not an exponential one like in the interest.


• Peer-to-peer: the total quantity of money in the community is determined in realtime by peer-to-peer exchange. There is no centralized authority that determines how much, where and when the quantity of money should be allocated.


• Controlled by the communities that use it: the rules of circulation, credit limits, taxes, decision making processes, etc, are controlled by the community itself. Most of these settings can be configured via the software.


• Sufficient: because based on mutual credit, i.e. there's never a lack of money since it is created upon the needs/wants streaming.


• Holoptical: which means transparency between participants and access to global information about the system.


• Adapted to all needs and all communities: whether communities are based on a local territory or a virtual one, each community exists because it has a circulating offer/demand within it. It can be time exchange, objects, services, knowledge... in a competitive or gift economy. Scarce mainstream currrencies only serve competitive markets. Open money serves whatever market since it is sufficient and can be applied in any context.


• Connected to any "real" or "virtual" value: any community currency can be based on a "real" value (time, gold, kilowatt, kilo of potatoes, oil, distance...) or a "virtual" value (i.e. no relation to anything in the real world, it is just a unit accepted in the community).

So there you have it, folks. I've already registered (at the first link). I plan to research it further (and participate actively) after my exam, Monday.

I recommend that anyone who's FED up with the current monetary system do the same. This may be the solution to our problem.