[ANN] Freicoin: demurrage crypto-currency from the Occupy movement (crowdfund)

[finkleshnorts]

isn't demurrage/inflation onlyuseful because people desire to "exchange" their depreciating money for something that does not depreciate as quickly (or at all, in bitcoin's case)?

I would think that a currency like this would be impossible to bootstrap without great influence (i.e. govermental influence), especially in bitcoin's digital arena.

[jtimon]

isn't demurrage/inflation onlyuseful because people desire to "exchange" their depreciating money for something that does not depreciate as quickly (or at all, in bitcoin's case)?

It is also useful to trade for other wares that unlike bitcoin or gold, perish like freicoin. Apples, fish, labor...
Others don't perish but incur in storage costs.

I would think that a currency like this would be impossible to bootstrap without great influence (i.e. govermental influence), especially in bitcoin's digital arena.

We advocates and other crazy people will be enough to give it a base price. After that price, merchants don't care about the absolute price, if they must put a lot of zeros with their prices denominated in fcn so be it. Think of bit-pay and bitcoin, for example. It makes possible for merchants that don't want to have any assets denominated in bitcoin to accept them.
A currency needs users, not necessarily hoarders.
Anyway, let's see what happens. This is not going to have governmental influence so we'll be able to know if your assertion is accurate.

[fivebells]

I would think that a currency like this would be impossible to bootstrap without great influence (i.e. govermental influence), especially in bitcoin's digital arena.

I think the idea is that you can pretty much mine it at the same time as bitcoin for pretty much zero cost, so you will at least have a lot of willing sellers, hence a reason for merchants to trade in it.

[Bitcoin Oz]

One thing is for sure I would spend freicoin more readily than bitcoin. I think thats the point....

[smoothie]

One thing is for sure I would spend freicoin more readily than bitcoin. I think thats the point....

hot potato! hot potato!

[jtimon]

One thing is for sure I would spend freicoin more readily than bitcoin. I think thats the point....

hot potato! hot potato!

Yes, that's the point. You give your wares and then you want other people's products in exchange. Freicoin is only the middle man: you don't want to deal with him for long periods. It's like going from city A to city B: you don't want to stop in the middle of the road. And you can harm other drivers by doing it.

The value sent / market Cap ratio will be much higher than in bitcoin. With higher velocity a currency can conduct more trade volume with less capitalization.

[chrisrico]

It's like going from city A to city B: you don't want to stop in the middle of the road. And you can harm other drivers by doing it.

Money as a road... I think this metaphor may be worse than the internet as a series of tubes or a bunch of trucks.

[jtimon]

It's like going from city A to city B: you don't want to stop in the middle of the road. And you can harm other drivers by doing it.

Money as a road... I think this metaphor may be worse than the internet as a series of tubes or a bunch of trucks.

Is it bad because roads serve to move wares around and capital monies sometimes don't?

[Etlase2]

Is it bad because roads serve to move wares around and capital monies sometimes don't?

burrrrrrrrn

[chrisrico]

Is it bad because roads serve to move wares around and capital monies sometimes don't?

Yes, sometimes they don't. Like when people want to save.

[jtimon]

Is it bad because roads serve to move wares around and capital monies sometimes don't?

Yes, sometimes they don't. Like when people want to save.

People saving doesn't imply people hoarding. Anyway, I was referring to monetary cycles. A sudden and destructive slow down on the velocity of money. My reasoning on this is on the deflation post.

[Spekulatius]

http://www.indiegogo.com/freicoin

OK, time is up, 1181$ collected. So what's next?

Will you still do it or bail out with you funders money? lol

Seriously, I would like to know what your plans are.

[maaku]

We're working on a beta, to be released within a week or two. Discussion is happening on the freicoin forums:

http://www.freicoin.org/

[maaku]

We're nearing feature-freeze for the beta. The beta, release planning, and launch will all occur on the Freicoin forums. This very well might be my last post on the topic here at bitcointalk. If you haven't yet, I recommend checking out the Freicoin forums:

http://freicoin.freeforums.org/

[ElectricMucus]

I just had an idea related to demurrage:

Instead of a regular bitcoin distribution scheme make all coins ever to exist instantly available. Provide a mechanism called "decay" where miners can vote on the speed of the demurrage. The vote is written into the solved block and the network calculates the moving average just like the difficulty adjustment.
New miners will probably vote for a short half-life old miners for a longer one. It's basically the proof of stake mechanism applied to demurrage.

This way the coin can stay valuable and fluid even for the initial period when the economy grows at an exponential rate.

It's kind of hard to describe it without examples but I'm am pretty confident this would yield the fastest economic growth possible.

[btcnut]

I think the problem with freicoin is it takes too much effort to explain to laymen. This means it wont be adopted easily.

Most people wont know what demurrage is

Most people dont like the idea of paying fees

The notion of demurrage discourages early adopters

Most people wont like trusting a "foundation" who gets a cut of everything (many organisations start out with good intentions)



Considering all of that, why not just go with the bitcoin model with a maximum number of blocks so high that would take millenia to reach the end point of. That way you would have your inflation component (printing of new coins) fixed, and wouldnt need to call it a fee or confuse laymen with terms like demurrage.

[maaku]

Inflation and demurrage are you it the same thing.

[Benny1985]

I think the problem with freicoin is it takes too much effort to explain to laymen. This means it wont be adopted easily.

Most people wont know what demurrage is

Most people dont like the idea of paying fees

The notion of demurrage discourages early adopters

Most people wont like trusting a "foundation" who gets a cut of everything (many organisations start out with good intentions)



Considering all of that, why not just go with the bitcoin model with a maximum number of blocks so high that would take millenia to reach the end point of. That way you would have your inflation component (printing of new coins) fixed, and wouldnt need to call it a fee or confuse laymen with terms like demurrage.

Its funny. You replace "Central banks" with "Foundations", and then give them direct access to taking money away from peoples' accounts.

Brilliant.

You're replacing one bankster with another.

[gigabytecoin]

Yea, I really dislike the idea of a "foundation" in both this currency and devcoin (I think? If I'm understanding it right that is...)

Who's to say the foundation doesn't just cashout all of their freicoins into another currency?

[maaku]

You are. Foundation coins will only be spent as part of a community vetted process.  You can join the conversation at freicoin.org.