BitCoin in the local economy

[savallone]

Understanding only the rudiments of the BC Protocol and almost nothing of programming I don't know if my idea is feasible. And if so, if it is worthy.

It would require that the BC Protocol have some facility to track the location of transfers in some manner similar to the way it tracks the history of transfers via the blockchain.

Then it could be known if a BC was spent within, say, twenty miles of where it was received. Then such a locally spent BC could be designed to receive a premium on purchasing power. Then a local economy could be given a boost to be self-supporting and thrive.

This must be what is meant by a trade barrier.

I don't have much understanding of finance either and I DO know that this is sketchier than a dream but I wanted to just throw the idea out there or for those who could pick it up.

[franky1]

the bitcoin protocol itself does not need this.

however you can easily create a webwallet app and have users in a community use that.

for instance.. dollars are not publicly logged by location. yet a company such as Uber, who uses braintree payment gateway(wallet) could log transactions and locations within their own systems and reward customers for whatever reason.. without having to change anything within the banking wire transfer systems.

even apple, starbucks and amazon log transactions internally, without having to mess with FIAT banks protocols. so although i can see many benefits of localised usage/rewarding.. i do not see why the main bitcoin protocol needs to do it.

its far better to keep bitcoin as simple, sleek and secure as possible. and then give people the choice of webwallet service, dependent on features/benefits they want.

[jaberwock]

It would hurt the privacy and will be misleading and would open space to abuse and injustices.

There is no easy way to tell exactly where each transaction came from, for all transactions in general, even without proxies there still will be room for errors, as far I know

[Kprawn]

You can always request a Alt coin developer to create a coin with these features, but please not for Bitcoin. We already have 3rd party service providers infringing on our privacy. {AML/KYC regulations}

The whole idea for Bitcoin was to provide some sort of anonymity to protect your financial privacy. The pseudonymous nature of Bitcoin protects your financial history from being exploited.

If they include this into the Bitcoin protocol, many people would stop using it. {Why must the stalker next door need to know, when and where and on what my son or daughter spend their Bitcoin}

You see, what the risk of these kind of features bring? Let's just keep our finances private... You have the same rights when you use cash, why not with Bitcoin? 

[savallone]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

In hindsight I wasn't so much wanting to alter the BCP to facilitate an alternate economy but in recognizing that an economy confined to a specific locale is socially superior to a global one I was wondering if the BCP could assist in that. And I think franky1 came closest to addressing this.

But by "specific locale" I don't mean a specific business, I mean a specific geographic place. An economy confined to a specific locale is socially superior because it encourages neighbors to interact whereas Apple and Amazon and even Starbucks are, the fantasy notwithstanding, about getting you to spend your money with them. If money had more value if it stayed close to home perhaps the world would feel less alien. I think this is expressed, for example, in the widening longing for farmer's markets. The closest I've come to effecting this was the idea for a local restaurant to offer a discount for patrons showing a driver's license with a local zip code.

It seemed that as long as this technology is still in its nascent state we could up the ante and develop it to foster not just a monetary expedient but a broader social one as well. But this may be a bit tangential to this forum.

Again, thanks all.