how does the issuers set the price per unit of the local currency?

also why wouldn't the people just use the national currency... whats the advantage of buying local currency with a national currency?

its starting to sound like Canadian Tire money

the issuers gives you this "local currency" in exchange for what?

You have presented no counter argument to the points Ive set out.

Local currencies are just glorified gift vouchers, which can only be spent locally. So they stop money leaving the area.

However, theres another reason why people issue them. The issuers are hoping that people will not redeem all the currency notes for goods or fiat, thereby creating a profit for the issuers. Thats one reason why I dont like them. The issuers can enhance this profit mechanism, by putting obstacles in the way of holders from redeeming them. So they put expiry dates on the bills, or they only allow them to be redeemed for fiat in a certain place and time.

The second reason I dont like local or private currencies, is the issuers could issue lots of them, and then go bust, or abscond, making it impossible to redeem them for fiat. That means local merchants will stop accepting them for goods, and they become instantly worthless.

Because of these reasons, local or private currencies are often considered a bit of a scam. Unfortunately, bitcoin is often tarred with the same brush. I am finding it hard to convince people that bitcoin is not like this.

I hope not!
If the public somehow connects bitcoins with this bristol gift cards (i refuse to call it a currency. thanks to scribe for a wonderful alternative name), everyone will think of bitcoin as a gift card. Misconception is the last thing we need.

Everyone is overly exicted about a thing that only matters to the Bristol community and has nothing to do with bitcoins.

Really? Do you know where else?

OMG THE DOLLAR JUST GAINED 30% in value as seen from the recent exchange rate vs bitcoins going up!

Deflation is good for anyone using bitcoins.

All that really needs to happen for deflation to be a net positive with a slow trend of ROI on hoarding, is for people to realize that a few things are inevitable.

1. You can have your bitcoins as your day to day spending money, and value them against another currency as if they were just a stock, if you do this, it makes it act as though you can be gain money even by acting in only bitcoins during a deflationary period.

for example, you put 100 BTC into buying seeds, you grow your crop, and at the end of the year, your crop sells for 99 BTC. This seems like a horrible deal because you lost 1 BTC, and put in the work to grow your crop, but this can be an illusory loss if you value the coins from the beginning differently than you do for the coins at the end. If you had 100 at $10.00 each at the start, and you end up with 99 at 10.15, you have still made a profit in absolute monetary value of your coins. Obviously it would have been better to just hold onto the coins, but the benefit of having a fiat to value your coins against during a deflationary period is that even when you lose, you win.  (you can still lose, but there is a cushion)

2. If people hoard indefinitely, they don't actually have money, a snowbank is not a river and can't erode a canyon until it melts.

3. Ignoring the existence of fiat currencies makes deflation a much slower process because all of your buying and selling will be done in a currency that must function for both parties when they turn around to spend it somewhere else. People won't be willing to lower their prices just because the value has supposedly gone up compared to some fiat. A cup of coffee doesn't change with the dollar every day, and it won't change with the bitcoin if the people selling it have any sense of self preservation.

I am interested in starting a few businesses that cater to bitcoins and other online-only currencies, mainly offering secure methods of doing transactions for currency-to-currency exchanges but also for any sort of good/service that is purchased over the internet.

I'm also a long-time trader in both bitcoins (about 16 months now) and equities, currencies, commodities, and bonds (over 10 years), including a 3 year stint at a prop-trading firm, essentially a swing trading hedge fund with scaled trader payouts.  Crazy times.  Anyway, I have been thinking of setting up an actual company offshore and starting a hedge fund that would essentially offer returns that aren't diminishing (as in bitcoin miner bonds) over time and giving people who have a large bulk of their assets in bitcoins the opportunity to get involved in international finance opportunities without having to go through all of the hoops to get it set up themselves, especially since my brokerage already allows me to add corporate/business accounts and is already set up to handle a huge laundry list of domestic and international assets.

I am working on an actual investment strategy breakdown and prospectus with some hard-line rules and a good, solid contract that can be respected by both parties (judge.me is international, and all of my personal and business information will be available to investors once the time is right)

My account is very, very new, but I have been a long, long time lurker on here (since back in the days of 10-cent bitcoins), and just never really had a reason to sign up.  It's time.