This is the obvious way, yes. But it can be also a customer-owned one (housing co-op), or mixed / multistakeholder (patient/doctor-owned medical service co-op). We are not constrained by XIXth-Century imagination. :-)

Thank you for mentioning GNU Taler.

I have freshly read an interesting article https://www.leafscore.com/... (the link is weirdly recycled, it is a 2024 piece), showing that there is a number of altcoins (and I use this term deliberately - no ETH or BTC included) trying to solve both the technical and political faults of the initial concept. I believe that, if one designs a currency properly in political sense, the technology can be adjusted as well.

Come to https://kinowolnosc.pl, let's see how we get along.

Would you care to provide more information?

So, after 3 years, did this post age well?

In few days I will be announcing our flagship project for 2024. Once it is done, I will get back to the pattern language topic (which also fits nicely as one of "legs" of the said project). Meanwhile, I am looking for other relevant resources, so we will hopefully have something to start with. Hope for your contribution, too.

Keep in mind that, depending on local legal system, a co-op may not need to be registered as such. In Poland, for example, social enterprises can assume various legal forms, my favourite beng a civic association.

Do we have an XMPP room/muc for all people to chat here?

Partly, I answered here: https://slrpnk.net/post/14539748/11723741

As for the scope of it, I see it as a bridge solution for the stage where we still have to interact with capitalist realm, but can already start building our own (post-capitalist, solarpunk, anarchist - whatever the name) real economy, so we need an inter-community exchange token. There should (nor will) not be a uniform solution for every community involved, so we need something to use as a mediating value carrier.

As such, it may retire at some point in favour of something better suited to the new world needs, or survive - like gold today - in mostly symbolic role.

You have 20 GB quota with 5 GB daily limit, moderated. Enjoy.

...which is ideally / eventually the usecase for the coin I am thinking about.

As far as I know I am the only person trying to explore this topic as defined, at least in Polish context. So far I found two documents that are close to my idea, f lacking a live collective to keep them up to date and to support newcomers.

• https://www.sustainweb.org/...
• https://autonomy.work/...

Infrastructure

Public services - especially regarding persons with disabilities (PwD) - are being increasingly starved.

In Poland, effectively 1st of January, the caretaker support (for people not employed due to taking full time care of their disabled relatives) has been replaced with "supportive money", much harder to obtain and in lower amount. New parliament is promising substantial rises, but there is no money in sight to back them up.

In UK, as almost 20% of municipalities warns about imminent bankruptcy, an old idea to "warehouse" PwD looms again.

Great contribution, thank you. I am an admirer of 19th Century engineering and inventions, and it is good to have someone around, to ground me, so to speak. 😆

By your permission, I would like to tap more of your knowledge.

One technical remark:

if you have your currency fixed to say imaginum and there is only a fixed supply of imaginum in the world, but the economy grows twice in size, you end up with 100% inflation.

Should read "deflation".

Other than that, I agree - within your assumptions of a well run governemnt. However, there is a whole lot of people within solarpunk realm who do not believe thet "a well run government" can exist (detailed definitions aside) and do want government (governance body) beyond the scale of a community that can directly control it. Thus, any such government-backed currency would still be local. Which puts us back to the field one, lacking the intergovernmental exchange carrier.

Getting a bit more theoretical, I am in favor of two currency-backing values that are IMO elementary and not substitute: energy and time. We see many "timebank" systems run locally, but even if we can say that this is the currency created (though commitment) by individuals, they still follow the pattern of central clearing office, sometimes with added reputation systems.

Energy - which essentially all solar, by the way - is mostly used via proof-of-work schemes, and could probably be used through proof-of-useful-work filter, which to me looks like a good way to fund/support public works.

This way or another, whatever is the source of the currency, we always need to address the risk of double spending and forgery. In absence of a commonly trusted authority (bank or government), public trust and control can be exercised through an openly available, tamper-proof and distributed ledger. Now, blockchain is one way to implement it. Can we imagine something else?

tl;dr: No authority, no blockchain - then what?

Trust is a choice. There will always be people who choose not to trust - that is their right and they should not be alienated because of that.

Drop me a link to your channel, let me see it. I can adjust limits, of course.

Would it make sense to use Wordpress as a front and dokuwiki (via API?) in background? We will need wiki anyway for other purposes.