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Topic: [ANN] Freicoin: demurrage crypto-currency from the Occupy movement (crowdfund) - page 22. (Read 68048 times)

legendary
Activity: 905
Merit: 1012
What I will do is become a miner and sell the coins and buy BTC.
Then you will be doing exactly what the currency is designed for.

Let me reiterate again: the purpose of this *coin is to cleanly separate the dual purposes of money, medium-of-exchange from store-of-value. You trade your mined freicoins for BTC, but the counter-party to that transaction doesn't want to hold on to freicoins any more than you do. So he uses it to buy services he needs, and the service provider gets rid of it by paying an employee, and that employee spends it buying groceries, and that grocer turns a profit and invests it in bitcoins, bringing the Freicoin cash back to the exchange, etc., etc. ad infinitum.

Bitcoin is and always will be an ideal mechanism for storing value, superior to Freicoin in that regard. That is expected, desirable, and by design.
hero member
Activity: 717
Merit: 501
The coin is a joke.  Everyone will be a miner, hoping the people that do the real work will earn money for them.  What I will do is become a miner and sell the coins and buy BTC.  Assuming it is worth the electricity to do so.  These Bill Still/Ellen Brown types need to learn a lesson, inflationary coins are not fair.  Yes, the 4.4% might be a good fee to maintain the system, but not as a plan to hurt the rich.
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 500
Wat
If the goal is price stability or 0% basic interest (read Gesell for why these are linked and why they should be the goal), then you need to account for productivity and population growth as well. Historically, the sum total has been in the 4-5% range.

Understood.
legendary
Activity: 905
Merit: 1012
No worries; just wanted to make sure there was no confusion  Wink
sr. member
Activity: 966
Merit: 311
Actually that really is a coincidence (besides, Frei/“free, unencumbered, liberal” and Fried/“peace” are related lexicographically more by chance than by etymology).

“Freicoin” was the name given to a hypothetical bitcoin-based demurrage currency promoted by @jtimon on this forum about a year ago. It was through conversations with jtimon that parameters of this proposed alt chain were set. “Freicoin” itself is an nod to “Freigeld”, the hypothetical state-backed demurrage currency used by Gesell in his economic theories. In this context, “Frei” means free, no-cost, or unencumbered, and is a reference to the approx. 0% interest and easy access to credit it would provide.

Sorry, it's a bad idea to make this joke before you explained the origin of the name.
legendary
Activity: 905
Merit: 1012
Actually that really is a coincidence (besides, Frei/“free, unencumbered, liberal” and Fried/“peace” are related lexicographically more by chance than by etymology).

“Freicoin” was the name given to a hypothetical bitcoin-based demurrage currency promoted by @jtimon on this forum about a year ago. It was through conversations with jtimon that parameters of this proposed alt chain were set. “Freicoin” itself is an nod to “Freigeld”, the hypothetical state-backed demurrage currency used by Gesell in his economic theories. In this context, “Frei” means free, no-cost, or unencumbered, and is a reference to the approx. 0% interest and easy access to credit it would provide.
sr. member
Activity: 966
Merit: 311
Second, choose a new name. Forget about coin being in it and think of the name as your key sales tool. Freicoin is too German-sounding for US users.


What would you propose this coin be called?

I think the name is selected partially out of the vanity of its creator.  Wink For example, the Google "Page"rank did not refer to "webpage."

The first US coin to have a metal value less than its indicated value carried the name "Trime" which seems to me to be a pun. Perhaps this coin could be called the "Trius."
legendary
Activity: 905
Merit: 1012
If the goal is price stability or 0% basic interest (read Gesell for why these are linked and why they should be the goal), then you need to account for productivity and population growth as well. Historically, the sum total has been in the 4-5% range.
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 500
Wat
I do think the inflation should be 2% or so rather than 5% which seems massively excessive. I mean the reserve bank usually aims for 2-3% so dont make it WORSE than fiat.
sr. member
Activity: 470
Merit: 250
hero member
Activity: 686
Merit: 500
Wat
I joined occupy to open peoples minds about the financial system but it turns out that is not what occupy is about unfortunately. It ended up being a running battle with local police and council. It got sidetracked by non issues.

What Ive found is that the police and council cant do squat about me trading bitcoins where they can confiscate a tent Cheesy

This is why I want to setup a bitcoin trading desk in Melbourne.
hero member
Activity: 950
Merit: 1001
Freakoin
That's so going to stick.

This project is important as it might attract Occupy people to P2P crypto-currency in general.
Once they get the idea, they will have better understanding of the technology and will be able to choose the coin they like.

The initial particular characteristics of the coin are not that relevant, what's more important is that this is the coin designed specifically for them by NASA engineers!
+1. We might even want to create a whole bunch of different inflating/demurring coins, so they can pick whichever rate they think is best. Call me optimistic but I'm hoping for WAY higher than 4.4% annual growth in a few decades.
donator
Activity: 1736
Merit: 1014
Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.
Since Matthew's Ellwhatever is supposed to run other cryptocurrencies, Freakoin on such an uber gizmodoohickey will blow up the crypto world!  Cheesy
hero member
Activity: 496
Merit: 500
This project is important as it might attract Occupy people to P2P crypto-currency in general.
Once they get the idea, they will have better understanding of the technology and will be able to choose the coin they like.

The initial particular characteristics of the coin are not that relevant, what's more important is that this is the coin designed specifically for them by NASA engineers!
legendary
Activity: 2128
Merit: 1073
Freicoin is too German-sounding for US users.

Whats that supposed to mean?
Bergbau macht frei.

Or in Deutsch-English mixture:

Mining macht frei.

Or in English:

Mining liberates.

I apologise in advance for the reductio-ad-Hitlerum, but some jokes just write themselves here.
member
Activity: 80
Merit: 10
I'll take
"They screwed me out of $10,000 so I am sad and decide to start over far away from them, in Iceland"
over
"The entire U.S. banking system screwed me out of my pension so I am sad and move far away from that terrible system, to... oops, wait..."

Sorry, that sounded jerky... I mean I move to Iceland to find happiness again... Smiley
donator
Activity: 29
Merit: 252

 Fearful that this demurrage spiral might destroy your entire ability to feed your family, you eat the rotten bananas, get sick, and your wife leaves you with the children..


Nooo! Not the children!! Sad(((((

member
Activity: 80
Merit: 10
@herzmeister, @Bitinvestor, et al: my issue with Ripple isn't economic, it's societal. I don't want to take out a loan for a car and end up owing money to the people closest to me. That would poison relationships mighty quick. It's a fine idea for some circumstances, but not a universal panacea.

Let's up the ante and make it my circle of 10 closest friends who through the lure of easy money end up screwing me long term for their own short term gain.

I'll take
"They screwed me out of $10,000 so I am sad and decide to start over far away from them, in Iceland"
over
"The entire U.S. banking system screwed me out of my pension so I am sad and move far away from that terrible system, to... oops, wait..."

By dismissing Ripple, you leave your 99%-ers without any tools to define the scope of a particular set of economic problems; they are at all times diversifying their risk with every potentially disastrous or ill-considered scheme out there that happens to be using Bit/Freicoin.  We (hopefully) all noticed the important downside of "universal panaceas" from the effects of the mortgage crisis.

Real diversification means the power to explicitly define the scope of the economy you want when you need to do that, and that is exactly what the extant paper demurrage currencies do (and seem to do well).  But that's just one of at least two important uses I can see for Ripple-- it has nothing to do with a global village of hippies creating tenuous trust relationships (which unfortunately is what the current implementation looks like, but then what does the current implementation of Bitcoin look like to a non-ideologue...)
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1016
Strength in numbers
In an ideal world, I would have a “checking account” denominated in Freicoin where I receive my paycheck and from which I draw on for daily expenses, and a “savings account” denominated in Bitcoin. Does that make sense?
No. What problem would it solve to have a “checking account” denominated in Freicoin and not in bitcoin?
Depending on the assumption that they somehow manage to force miners to include transactions: No transaction fees, miner income is paid from the demurrage.

Right, that is a valid point. In the future when most bitcoins are mined miners will have to be compensated with transaction fees. But I'm far from convinced that the transaction fees would be so high that it would make sense to have a "checking account" denominated in Freicoin.


That gives reason to mine, but no reason to include your feeless tx. Maybe the equilibrium is lower fee, but it isn't clear why that would be.

Big flaws I see, as mentioned, people will just opt for bitcoin and supposing many opt for it for some reason 4.4% of the economy will always be dedicated to mining, which is outrageous long term. I don't think anyone can know in advance the exact right amount, but for a world dominating currency my guess is that .1% is more than enough.
donator
Activity: 29
Merit: 252
After reading the whole thread I'm unclear on one major thing. What is the incentive for me to exchange my bitcoins to freicoins in order to pay for something?

Near-term price  stability? Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the idea (in theory - and fsvo theory) is that a currency with a small steady inflation avoids wild swings and crazy bubbles. That the bubbles, cycles, etc. are much milder with such a currency.

So, when you promise someone to pay 1000 freicoins for a dozen bananas, you could be pretty sure that by Saturday the fair price as measured in freicoins will not change much.

Of course, for *saving* purposes, you would still want to buy and hold non-inflationary assets (bitcoin, etc.)

 

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