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Imagine a currency for an off-grid society where there is no internet and only peer to peer communication. How would a digital currency look like?

After some thought, that currency might be "time". You ask someone else to perform an action in exchange for their time in return.

Person A gives NN minutes of their life to person B in exchange for XYZ.

This means person A takes a commitment (signed digitally) to provide NN minutes of service to person B at a mutually agreed task (e.g. planting potatoes, harvesting, etc).

Such debt can be given to others. Person B gives minutes from person A to person C which can now demand those minutes to be serviced. All with digital proof of receipts when completed on both sides.

This system has faults, just remember that we are talking about an imperfect digital world without internet. It would work reasonably well on small communities where some level of trust is to be expected.

What are your thoughts? Would it work?

Kayne 4mo ago 💬 1

Like if you got debts within a community it's not a real community it's just some people trying to exploit each other.

When you're part of a community you have a duty to serve the community, no financial incentives or punishments necessary, and in turn the community cares for you.

A community should ideally function like a family.

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Discussion

brito 4mo ago

I'm not talking about a small community, we are looking at up to 100 people per location.

It gets difficult to keep a tally of who owns what and when. The kumbaya lifestyle where everyone has good sense doesn't scale.

If you work for a week planting the field of someone, you need payment for that. Attention that time can be traded for other goods when both parties agree. Also, time from diferent people has different values. You might work the fields for a week and just get 60 minutes as payment reward from someone important.