Bitcoin for Bohemians
Salt Spring Island, BC, prints its own money—and is an ideal site for a local currency experiment
BY HARLEY RUSTAD in WALRUS...
Illustration by JANICE WU
"Salt Spring Dollars were created in 2001 by dentist Bob McGinn and postal worker Eric Booth as part of a modest independence movement: the island isn’t its own municipality, and some residents thought designing a flag and launching a currency might add legitimacy to their claim. “The original idea behind the money was to get tourists to come, buy it, spend it, and take some of it off the island,” says Michael Gallant, the forty-three-year-old president of the Salt Spring Island Monetary Foundation (ssimf), the non-profit issuer. "
For now it is just a tourist draw but if the economy ever crashes and the Canadian dollar with it, this may save people in the long run.