P2P Barter – My entry to the MintChip Challenge
Here’s an explanation of what we have today, followed by a Use-Case for my idea…
A newspaper illustration depicting a man engaging in barter, paying his yearly newspaper subscription to the "Podunk Weekly Bugle" with various farm produce. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
TODAY:
1. Person A is a farmer who has worked hard all season and is ready for harvest of their crops. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call him the “Seller“, since the next step will be to sell their produce. For that they may need any of the following:
a location (i.e. storefront or directly from their farm)
an advertising budget to attract patrons to their own farm directly (or to their storefront)
transportation or a carrier service to do deliveries, or,
distributor agreements which arrange to have the produce picked up exactly when it is ready and bring it to 3rd party wholesalers or retailers for stocking in their storefront
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What should a Virtual Currency look like?
Image via Wikipedia
Should a “Virtual Currency” be tied to real-world currencies and
available for conversion?
Should it utilize the proven money transfer services such as PayPal or MoneyBookers and existing mainstream banks’ online banking infrastructure, or establish its very own infrastructure more attuned to the real needs of finacial transactions performed via the web?
Transactions which are usually smaller and less frequent than transactions in the so-called “real world”.
Should it learn from the mistakes of the real-world paper currencies
by being backed by real physical assets such as gold or silver?
http://worldcurrencywatch.com/2009/12/22/the-only-“gold-backed”-currency-left/
http://library.thinkquest.org/28718/history.html
Should it be based on a barter or time-exchange system?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_currency
In the US, for example, some struggling towns have already started printing their own money to offset the effects of inflation and hopefully avoid the inflationary depression into which the the world financial system seems to be spiraling.
Should it include real-world activities via tracking mechanisms on
mobile devices as in Japan’s Osaifu Ketai (shopping) and Suica, or SONY’s Felica, used in Japanese 携帯 (Mobile devices), is one such paperless digital cash solution, using RFID to register electronic and mobile transactions.
transportation services?
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/service/convenience/index.html#p01
http://www.jreast.co.jp/suica/
BC$ = Behavior, Content, Money
The goal of the BC$ project is to raise awareness and make changes with respect to the three pillars of information freedom - Behavior (pursuit of interests and passions), Content (sharing/exchanging ideas in various formats), Money (fairness and accessibility) - bringing to light the fact that:
1. We regularly hand over our browser histories, search histories and daily online activities to companies that want our money, or, to benefit from our use of their services with lucrative ad deals or sales of personal information.
2. We create and/or consume interesting content on their services, but we aren't adequately rewarded for our creative efforts or loyalty.
3. We pay money to be connected online (and possibly also over mobile), yet we lose both time and money by allowing companies to market to us with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant product offers and unfairly structured service pricing plans.