New currencies and their relationship with fiat currency
Complementary Currencies aim to work alongside the pound or the dollar. Classically they seek to broker exchanges of underused resources with unfulfilled need, and facilitate activity in niches neglected by the mainstream economy. They do much good work and are worthy of support.
Intentional Currency designs on the other hand will generally be grounded in a critical assessment of the way fiat currencies operate, and recognise and seek to remedy or mitigate their dysfunction. In this way they are competitive with fiat. Consequently if fiat currency plays a role in the start-up or continued operation of a new currency, it is appropriate to manage these interactions carefully and to understand the impact that fiat-dependence can have on the currency’s development.
This article outlines management issues associated with some of the potential interactions with fiat. It has been produced as a Working Paper as part of the Feasta Currency Group’s development of a Charter for Intentional Currencies.
Creating and maintaining a currency without any interaction with fiat is clearly a challenge. It’s like asking fish to reinvent water while they are swimming around in it. But if we consider the main forms of interaction with fiat, some clues as to the management of the difficulties may emerge.
Three important fiat-interactions are:
i) access to fiat capital for a start-up phase or for a step-change in the development of the currency
ii) the issuance of currency units in exchange for fiat (fiat-backing)
iii) general exchangeability with fiat
Capital Investment
Most projects need start-up capital, but fiat-friendly projects have the option of repaying investors or contributors in fiat once they are successful. A fiat-cautious project might think twice about this. To some extent this challenge has been successfully navigated by a number of ‘Open’ projects, at least to the extent that contributors defer any claim on project success until revenue streams flow or until ‘satellite’ fiat-earning activities are identified.
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