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RE: How might a basic income cryptocurrency affect governments, states, and citizenship?
This is a very interesting idea. But as there are vast differences in wealth between countries, I find global basic income to be more akin to development aid than universal basic income as a form of welfare. And who would provide the coins value by purchasing them? Wealthy individuals who wish to further the political agenda of internationalism? Nations seeking to disrupt the political cohesion of rival nations? Who else?
This is worth a read: Circles cryptocurrency basic income proposal.
I may have missed something but I did not notice a component of universal income in the proposal. It is said in the proposal that anyone can join the network and have their own personal coin minted, a coin others may opt to trust to a degree of their choosing. As far as I could tell, there was no mention of any universally accepted coin airdropped to anyone.
As I understand it, coins are continuously minted for each user. And the value of each user’s coins is related to how much people trust them, and how many people trust them. So it seems, effectively, it is a way to translate trust in the real world into a basic income currency that’s being continuously minted for each user, and whose utility is determined by people’s trustworthiness. You don’t have to do anything to earn and use it except be trustworthy. I’m sure this is a bad summary, but that’s my initial take.
You become trustworthy by consistently returning the favor. This is not basic income as basic income is, by definition, given in exchange for nothing.
Ah, true. I believe you receive the currency for nothing, but you can’t spend it unless other people trust you. So, yes, that’s a subtle nuance because if you have me a US dollar it’s already widely accepted and I could spend it in many places. This said, without a way to ensure people aren’t creating multiple identities, the system won’t work. So I don’t see how you get around the need for trust signals to make the currency viable.
Oh, I think the currency system is interesting. But it is no basis for universal basic income as it laid out in the white paper.