Comments on: What is a currency?

By: Guillaume’s blog » Blog Archive » Defining “currency”

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:54:44 +0000

[…] which prompted me to dedicate a post to the topic. My definition has certainly evolved since March 2009, so I wanted to share it here: A currency is a symbol whose meaning is common – consistently […]

By: Eric Harris-Braun

Eric Harris-Braun — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:20:18 +0000

I've posted some thoughts on why I use currency in a broader sense here: http://newcurrencyfrontiers.blogspot.com/2009/0…

By: ernie yacub

ernie yacub — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:24:30 +0000

“The stronger the reputation the more the currency will be accepted and flow” especially in mutual credit currencies where my money is my word.

By: Eric Harris-Braun

Eric Harris-Braun — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:20:18 +0000

I've posted some thoughts on why I use currency in a broader sense here: http://newcurrencyfrontiers.blogspot.com/2009/0…

By: ernie yacub

ernie yacub — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:24:30 +0000

“The stronger the reputation the more the currency will be accepted and flow” especially in mutual credit currencies where my money is my word.

By: Mark Szpakowski

Mark Szpakowski — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:17:45 +0000

Bernard Lietaer says “The word money is itself related the the Great Mother and derives from the Latin moneta. The first Roman mint operated out of the basement of the temple of the goddess Juno Moneta – – that is, her womb.”

I like the kind-of pun or entendre in use of the term “currency” as the binding of request and resource, into mutual presence or coming together. Something – the transaction – happens, resource meets need, currency is exchanged/recorded, and the currency remains available as a potency for further use. As many kinds of needs/resources relations there are, that many currencies there could be.

By: Alan Rosenblith

Alan Rosenblith — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:56:53 +0000

Great link to the contract language stuff! I will definitely look into that more.
What really excites me about including more types of social tools under the umbrella term “currency” is that the language we use for describing one, may be applicable to all. Whatever the word, there is clearly a deep structure that money, reputations, voting, grades, etc. all share. All of these systems are so closely interrelated that if we want to get meaningful information about what patterns are occurring an economy or design systems that help manifest the patterns we want, having a common matrix of understanding for all might be very useful.

By: Gerry Gleason

Gerry Gleason — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:06:26 +0000

Thanks for this exploration of the language. In English, I try to keep “money” for the tradable kind, the more restrictive version you are looking at, and use “currency” in the broader sense, and that fits with common usage of these words.

It is critical that we be able to represent all of these forms of currency, transferable, measurable, or not in the system lest we forget about and devalue the most important qualities, the values that we hold closest to the center of our being.

By: Guillaume

Guillaume — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:58:11 +0000

Hi Alan, thank for for the feedback. Indeed we are in a political monetary economy, not just an economy so there are indeed many other important social interactions other than exchange. I agree with you that the tools to model, automate and analyze these processes are not yet available. That said, there is a lot of work on formal languages for contracts (ex. http://szabo.best.vwh.net/contractlanguage.html).

Re: understanding. I agree users shouldn't have to understand how a currency is designed to get value from it, but because we are re-using the word "currency", we need to make sure that whatever the popular understanding of the value is, we don't stretch it too far, at least not too quickly.

By: Marc Tirel

Marc Tirel — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:46:05 +0000

then let's create a new word that will facilitate the exploration of ideas and experimentations around new forms of money & currency.
This (those) word(s) should reflect what we would like it to become : a mean of exchange that enable the flows of wealth, energies & ideas between people.
See the VitaMoney concept ” FREE ” ( FR ee E nergy E xchange) here : http://p2pfoundation.net/?title=Joytopia&diff=2…