The primary features of society’s media of exchange have changed little since the Bank of Sweden and Bank of England started issuing notes in the late 1600’s. Our means of payment are, by and large, loaned into existence, national in nature, fractional reserve backed, and established by fiat. While this design has been and will continue to be useful for a large variety of transactions, it obscures a vast design space, some of which has been explored on the margins, including: time banks, mutual credit, local currencies backed by local goods, demurrage-charged currencies, natural-capital backed currencies, money gifted into existence through a basic income, and others.
We believe that many of these features have great potential for positive impact, and that we would be well-served to have a world in which the way value is stored and transmitted is more an ecology than a monoculture.