A Small Idea : a digital currency unit

[herzmeister]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_of_goods

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_mac_index

And yes, why not separating the "unit of account" from the "means of exchange"/"store of value" function of money. Once the dollar is history, prices in shops could be displayed in Big Macs, but payable in (fluctuating) bitcoins, litecoins, gold, silver, whatever, converted on the spot. We're living in the information age right now, so it's easily possible.

[Gilberto]

Hi, i'm here to talk about an "idea" that poped in my mind just when i wanted to sleep last night (that's always like that ... can't sleep after ...)

What money/currency has not instead of a lot of "measures", the unit :

When you use any unit of distance, you can express it in meters.
When you use any unit of time, you can express it in seconds.

When you use money, everyone use something different. Most of the world express it in Dollar or Euro.

But it's not units, it's currencies, that fluctuate all the time.

Sometimes sellers have to change their prices in "real" money because of the fluctuations, but with digital currencies, the prices are never the same.

Example of a sandwich sold by a baker

Let's say that a baker that sell is sandwich at 3$ want to use digital currencies. So he will try to use BitCoin and use the equivalent in bitcoin to the price in $.

But because of the fluctuation he will have to change the price everyday or so, not to sell it too cheap or too expansive

http://www.universalcurrencyunit.org/img/withoutunic-small.png

Like i've read in a french article, a journalist tried to buy something in a bakery "accepting Bitecoins". But the baker had stopped to took Bitcoins, because he thought he couldn't keep with the pace of this currency.

Why not use a fixed unit ?

So i thought, if we could use a international/universal unit, like any measures, could it make things easier ? (Like gold was used before i think ?)

That's what i mean by 'universal currency unit' (or 'unic' / Uc)

If you set a FIXED unit, and put currencies value with it, you can express every currency in this unit, exchange what you want of this unit using many currencies.

For digital currencies which have a very fluctuating value, maybe a short life, would it be really useful ?

And you can set something that is not related to any country (because even real money can be expressed in it)

So for the case of our baker, he could give the price of his sandwich in Unic and his country money (like we had for euro when it came)

He will just have to say what currencies he accept

http://www.universalcurrencyunit.org/img/withunic-small.png

So i think this would help to make seller accept better the digital currencies

Or maybe i'm just a fool, and for sure i forgot a lot of parameters ^^


What's next ?

if you think it's an interesting idea, vote for it.

If you would want to create something on that, or discuss more about it, i'm about to make a forum.

If you think it's really stupid, say it too  

(ps : i will rewrite this post, it's a little messy ...)

Perhaps this is what BitUSD will be used for. Bitshares seems to be developing some kind of currency which will precisely track the price of the dollar and provide a cryptocurrency which is free from volatility.

This is made possible by a technical form known as contract for difference. Alice and Bob both wager on the price in opposite directions up or down resulting in price stability.

[frito]

Hi, i'm here to talk about an "idea" that poped in my mind just when i wanted to sleep last night (that's always like that ... can't sleep after ...)
......

If you think it's really stupid, say it too 

(ps : i will rewrite this post, it's a little messy ...)

I can imagine such a unit PEGGED to a basket of fiat currencies OR it can be valued by e.g. a food basket from all over the world.
Lets say in 2014 such a standardized basket would cost 1UNIT and the next year due to very low grain yield worldwide it would cost e.g. 1.2UNIT(inflation due to low grain yield)...

To conclude: I think assigning value to the UNIT should be based on some high utility real life object like a standardized food basket.
Or for simplicity it can just be hard pegged to an existing fiat or averaged bunch of fiat currencies.

Problems:

How would you issue such a crypto currency(if it was pegged to real life asset or fiat)? You wouldn't be able to conjure it like central banks do.

But how would one run the UNIT network/infrastructure? Without incentives like block reward and transfer fees?

The model of limited supply and gradual build up of the total supply could not be applied here. The UNIT total supply would have to be derived from the underlying asset supply.

p.s. sorry for using UNIT instead of Uc, just noticed

[tss]

will there be an exchange where i can speculate on each person's country values?   

each country has what is known as living costs. basically the costs of average rent, food, and essentials.

so if you declare this as a unit. and say 1 bitcoin is worth 2LC (2 weeks of living costs) that would be easily able to convert independantly to each persons country value. without having to be a dollar to X exchange rate.

[superresistant]

To conclude : It is impossible. Forget it.

[Lauda]

To conclude : It is impossible. Forget it.

It is bad. Forget it.