New crypto-currency Beertokens and it's Exchange

[naturallaw]

If I have understood correctly, you wont accomplish what you are promising, because its basically imposible. The price of anything, including a currency is determined by supply and demand. You are controlling the supply and it wont change more than your 3%. But the demand is unknown and can be very variable, so you basically can not control the price.

He's Ben Bernanke.

[sacarlson]

The purpose of the Beertokens trust is an attempt to create a more stable currency that will not change in value more than  between +-3% over time so that merchants can start using crypto currencies for what they were meant to be used for instead of just speculating.

If I have understood correctly, you wont accomplish what you are promising, because its basically imposible. The price of anything, including a currency is determined by supply and demand. You are controlling the supply and it wont change more than your 3%. But the demand is unknown and can be very variable, so you basically can not control the price.

Maybe you should try and tell that to Chinese who have been doing it for years to pin the value of there currency to the USD by buying and selling US treasuries.  Or maybe you have never been to Los Vegas and used casino chips that are guaranteed to be trade-able for an amount of USD.  Although I must admit I have had my doubts with the large changes in BTC over the past 30 or so days.  It's all a mater of having large enuf reserves of stable enuf asset holdings base to cover fluctuations and have an unlimited yet controlled supply of beer.  As the changes we have seen in the value of BTC go from 30 to 10 and up again I find I would not be able to hold as large a percent of "The Trusts" assets in that class of holdings as I had hoped we could do.  I have changed high estimates of needed preminted Beertokens to 26billion as compared to what we see PayPal.com has in there float units and in the event we run out we would just run a new chain that would be equally trade-able 1 to 1 shares in the central exchange to provide for infinite expansion.  And also THE most important is to have it managed by a GROUP of trustworty people not just one.

[hugolp]

The purpose of the Beertokens trust is an attempt to create a more stable currency that will not change in value more than  between +-3% over time so that merchants can start using crypto currencies for what they were meant to be used for instead of just speculating.

If I have understood correctly, you wont accomplish what you are promising, because its basically imposible. The price of anything, including a currency is determined by supply and demand. You are controlling the supply and it wont change more than your 3%. But the demand is unknown and can be very variable, so you basically can not control the price.

Maybe you should try and tell that to Chinese who have been doing it for years to pin the value of there currency to the USD by buying and selling US treasuries.  Or maybe you have never been to Los Vegas and used casino chips that are guaranteed to be trade-able for an amount of USD.  Although I must admit I have had my doubts with the large changes in BTC over the past 30 or so days.  It's all a mater of having large enuf reserves of stable enuf asset holdings base to cover fluctuations and have an unlimited yet controlled supply of beer.  As the changes we have seen in the value of BTC go from 30 to 10 and up again I find I would not be able to hold as large a percent of "The Trusts" assets in that class of holdings as I had hoped we could do.  I have changed high estimates of needed preminted Beertokens to 26billion as compared to what we see PayPal.com has in there float units and in the event we run out we would just run a new chain that would be equally trade-able 1 to 1 shares in the central exchange to provide for infinite expansion.  And also THE most important is to have it managed by a GROUP of trustworty people not just one.

If you dont have direct control of the supply, you wont be able to control it for long. You will eventually run out of funds, there are very clever speculators out there. This happens constantly when central banks try control the exchange rate of their currency. Because they dont control the supply of the other currency they get crashed. The chinese are able to do what they do because their economy is developing and the natural tendency of their currency is appreciation. Devaluating is easy and "free" (for the central bank). Increasing the value of a currency is expensive. If the chinese economy started to fail, their central bank would be unable to hold the value of the yuan to the dollar.

If you have direct control of the supply, who is going to trust the currency?

[TierNolan]

If you dont have direct control of the supply, you wont be able to control it for long. You will eventually run out of funds, there are very clever speculators out there. This happens constantly when central banks try control the exchange rate of their currency. Because they dont control the supply of the other currency they get crashed. The chinese are able to do what they do because their economy is developing and the natural tendency of their currency is appreciation. Devaluating is easy and "free" (for the central bank). Increasing the value of a currency is expensive. If the chinese economy started to fail, their central bank would be unable to hold the value of the yuan to the dollar.

With a 100% backed currency, you can hold the value to almost anything.

In this example, if the price of the currency rises above (beer price) + 3%, then he could buy lots of cans of beer.  He could then sell the beer if the price of the currency falls.

The fact that beer doesn't last that long would mean that he would have to cycle the cans out of his reserve.

Storage costs in general would add more expense.  OTOH, if he bought in bulk, he could very easily buy the cans at lower than the high street price.

All he needs is for his reserves to be worth at least as much as the outstanding coins.  Worst case, everyone turns in their coins and he ends up with whatever is left in his reserve.

If people paid $2 for a coin and he can buy cans for $1.50, then he can build up his reserve at less than the face cost.

[sacarlson]

If you dont have direct control of the supply, you wont be able to control it for long. You will eventually run out of funds, there are very clever speculators out there. This happens constantly when central banks try control the exchange rate of their currency. Because they dont control the supply of the other currency they get crashed. The chinese are able to do what they do because their economy is developing and the natural tendency of their currency is appreciation. Devaluating is easy and "free" (for the central bank). Increasing the value of a currency is expensive. If the chinese economy started to fail, their central bank would be unable to hold the value of the yuan to the dollar.

With a 100% backed currency, you can hold the value to almost anything.

In this example, if the price of the currency rises above (beer price) + 3%, then he could buy lots of cans of beer.  He could then sell the beer if the price of the currency falls.

The fact that beer doesn't last that long would mean that he would have to cycle the cans out of his reserve.

Storage costs in general would add more expense.  OTOH, if he bought in bulk, he could very easily buy the cans at lower than the high street price.

All he needs is for his reserves to be worth at least as much as the outstanding coins.  Worst case, everyone turns in their coins and he ends up with whatever is left in his reserve.

If people paid $2 for a coin and he can buy cans for $1.50, then he can build up his reserve at less than the face cost.

TierNolan is correct with 100% backing you can hold the price of anything at any price.  The one fault in his statement is that we don't really plan to hold beer we just hold assets of USD or ERO or treasuries and bonds in many different currencies in many different countries and many different banks to keep the possibilities of any one country or bank or entity from being able to lock us out of any or all of our assets.  We just base the value on the commodity of beer to make it clear to the holders of "The Trust" the value of what they hold for each share.  so we don't have a problem with aging or storage.  what you may not even realize is that 90% or more of the world banks only hold 10% or less of the outstanding debt of there depositors.  We have no plan to be as unstable as any of the known banks.   Remember we have unlimited supply, we can sell as many shares as the market can bare and we can and will buy back any outstanding shares the market wishes to cash out to any degree needed to keep liquidity constant.

[hugolp]

TierNolan is correct with 100% backing you can hold the price of anything at any price.  The one fault in his statement is that we don't really plan to hold beer we just hold assets of USD or ERO or treasuries and bonds in many different currencies in many different countries and many different banks to keep the possibilities of any one country or bank or entity from being able to lock us out of any or all of our assets.  We just base the value on the commodity of beer to make it clear to the holders of "The Trust" the value of what they hold for each share.  so we don't have a problem with aging or storage.  what you may not even realize is that 90% or more of the world banks only hold 10% or less of the outstanding debt of there depositors.  We have no plan to be as unstable as any of the known banks.   Remember we have unlimited supply, we can sell as many shares as the market can bare and we can and will buy back any outstanding shares the market wishes to cash out to any degree needed to keep liquidity constant.

Ok, so you are basically a 100% reserve bank of whatever currencies you decide to hold. But the question now is: whats the point? Why would I want to use your currency instead of euros if I know they are the "same? And what do you get of all this and how do I know you will stay honest?

[Man From The Future]

s/it's/its/

[TierNolan]

Ok, so you are basically a 100% reserve bank of whatever currencies you decide to hold. But the question now is: whats the point? Why would I want to use your currency instead of euros if I know they are the "same? And what do you get of all this and how do I know you will stay honest?

Well, he is using an actual commodity, so no central bank control.  Also, you can trade them electronically.

Since bitcoins seem to be increasing in value, there seems little point in not just using them.

What it could be good for is to give a stable reference for bitcoins' actual value.  For example, you could hold bitcoins but agree to pay in beertokens.  This would eliminate the need to do the deflation calculation in your head.

[naturallaw]

Well, he is using an actual commodity, so no central bank control.

Seems to me, he is the central bank of beertokens!

[Anonymous]

The aussie beer tokens would be backed by fosters and VB.

 

Why not setup a wine token exchange because you can store bottles of those in a cellar for years and they even increase in  value ? Or scotch ?

Of course then your market would crash if jesus returns and turns all the water into wine. 

[markm]

Apparently that is part of the plan for an Italian cryptocurrency, they are mostly waiting to see how the Brits and Canucks do with their cryptocurrencies first though if even the Czechs can do it, they figure, surely Italians can too.

-MarkM-

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

So, when can we start getting beer tokens?

[BitcoinPorn]

Abe supports Weeds: http://john-edwin-tobey.org:2750/chain/Weeds

(Sorry for the slowness.  A faster server and faster code are in the works.  The impatient are welcome to run and improve Abe.)

I'd support beertokens too if I could find the config file.  Could I have missed it?

I fully support these Weed coin things.  I also love this post, pot enters the picture, is late and has a bunch of excuses on why it is lol

[hugolp]

Ok, so you are basically a 100% reserve bank of whatever currencies you decide to hold. But the question now is: whats the point? Why would I want to use your currency instead of euros if I know they are the "same? And what do you get of all this and how do I know you will stay honest?

Well, he is using an actual commodity, so no central bank control.  Also, you can trade them electronically.

Since bitcoins seem to be increasing in value, there seems little point in not just using them.

What it could be good for is to give a stable reference for bitcoins' actual value.  For example, you could hold bitcoins but agree to pay in beertokens.  This would eliminate the need to do the deflation calculation in your head.

But if you are fixing the price to another currency, why not hold the other currency directly? I mean, if I know 5 beers are going to always be 50 euros, why not just have 50 euros and avoid the counterparty risk?

I just dont get this project and Im trying to see if Im being thick or what.

[Jack of Diamonds]

Hahahaha

I hope someone didn't actually send BTC for 13 'beertokens' on this guys 'exchange'

[TierNolan]

But if you are fixing the price to another currency, why not hold the other currency directly? I mean, if I know 5 beers are going to always be 50 euros, why not just have 50 euros and avoid the counterparty risk?

His argument would probably be that beer is less likely to inflate.  If the government prints lots of money, beer prices will increase, but one can of beer will still have the same value.

If brewing technology improved, the price of a can could drop though.

I just dont get this project and Im trying to see if Im being thick or what.

It doesn't seem like a massively serious proposal .

[markm]

It doesn't seem like a massively serious proposal .

Maybe we'll be better able to judge that when the Italians and Scotts get their blockchains up and running, by checking his exchange rates for beer vs wine vs scotch.

-MarkM-

[John Tobey]

It doesn't seem like a massively serious proposal .

I dunno, he's clearly put in some effort.  What is definitely serious is the infrastructure to support more experimental currencies.  I doubt that BTC is the last word on chain-of-work currencies.

[elements]

Why not use this:

=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index

It is very international and is already well established...


Cheers

[markm]

It doesn't seem like a massively serious proposal .

I dunno, he's clearly put in some effort.  What is definitely serious is the infrastructure to support more experimental currencies.  I doubt that BTC is the last word on chain-of-work currencies.

Definitely. A lot of people pooh-pooh alternative block chains but there is a lot of potential.

-MarkM-