Choose the Right Mechanisms: Support Media
Once you have convened the Community Currency Leader and his or her
Team, there are several aspects of the currency you need to consider to
design the system you need:
A. the Support Medium they use;
B. their Function;
C. the Issuing Process; and
D. the Cost Recovery Mechanism.
Each of these considerations will first be defined, and then we’ll identify
the choices available within each category. We will also briefly identify
advantages and disadvantages of each one of these choices. In the
conclusion of this section, we will map some real-life currency systems
according to the characteristics they have that match these five groups.
The starting point for a general typology of complementary currencies
systems is our working definition of currency as “an agreement within a
community to use something as a medium of exchange.” On the basis of
this definition, one can identify as currencies a wide range of social tools
that had been, are currently, or could be used as medium of exchange in
the world.
SupportMedia
The support(s) used for issuing or handling a currency is one of the easiest
features to grasp - we are familiar with the various forms that currency
comes in – paper notes, coins, and plastic cards, given that conventional
money uses practically all of them today. These supports fall into the
following types:
Commodity Money: Commodity money in history took an extraordinary
wide variety of forms. For centuries, societies have successfully used salt,
eggs, cattle, textiles, various handicrafts, ingots of various metals, and
dozens of other items as currencies. In modern times, during WW2 in
prison camps cigarettes were used as currency in many places. Today, the
charcoal currency of Osaka is a contemporary example of that tradition.
Paper and coins: Paper and coins are the most familiar form of money
today. For contemporary uses of complementary currencies paper is the
most popular form because it is both easy to carry and handle, and
comparatively cheap to produce (e.g. Ithaca HOURS, WAT bills of
exchange, LETS account booklets, etc.)
Electronic media: Electronic media include smartcards, a central PC
running the accounts, or Internet networks, or for large systems
mainframe computer systems. The vast majority of conventional money
has taken the form of computer bites over the past four to five decades,
and complementary currency systems have been following this path as
well.
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