The goal of this document is to collect ideas for different use-cases of groupcash currencies.
- Time Bank
- Care-taking
- Community service
- Local exchange trading
- On-line payment
- Cash-less payment
- Tourist money
- Local discount
Trading services within a community, based on time as currency units (for example 1 hour = 1 coin)
- Requester - is looking for a service
- Provider - offers a service
- Administrator - enforces credit limits
The currency in this example is called Thimphu Time Bank, its units Time Coins and it's run by Dechen.
Karma is offering maths tutoring. He posts a profile to the Thimphu Time Bank website, offering his services. Dorji has failed his midterm exams in maths and needs urgent tutoring. He goes to the Thimphu Time Bank website and finds the profile of Karma with his phone number. He writes him on WeChat, asking when he's available. Karma replies and they set a date.
The following week, Karma tutors Dorji for one hour after which he asks him to transfer one Time Coin to his digital account. At this point Dorji realizes that he does not own any Time Coins. Karma asks him to call Dechen so she can grant him a credit.
Dorji meets with Dechen on the next day. She asks him why he wants to join and what he can offer and maybe even sets-up his profile on the website. Dorji says he has nothing to offer but Dechen finds out that he sometimes helps his grandfather in the garden so he knows some gardening.
Like every knew member, he receives one Time Coin worth one hour. He immediately transfers it to Karma. As it happens, Karma's grandmother needs helps in her garden and is also member of the Time Bank. So Dorji can earn Time Coins by helping her and can spend them on tutoring and other services.
- initial credit limit
- increasing of credit limit
- fixed or flexible hour rates and limits (e.g. 1h = 1h)
- eventually reputation system
- enables members to access services within the community without having to get a interest-bearing loan
- strengthens and creates social connections in the community by increasing collaboration and interactions
- website with profiles and requests, filtered and stuff
- social media and chat programs
- regular social gatherings of members and prospect members
- membership fees
- transaction fees
- pay for a higher credit limit
- pay for permission to increase rate
Like the Time Bank above, but with only one type of service: taking care of elderly people. Young members earn coins by taking care of people in the community and can spend them when they're old themselves.
Like the Time Bank above, but run by the municipal administration. For every hour spent doing community service, the member gets entrance to social or cultural events for an equal amount of time.
A groupcash currency could be used to transfer wealth electronically without the need for a central authority. Let's call this currency eCoin.
There would be four roles involved:
- An issuer to regulate the creation of eCoins, let's call her Marge.
- A backer that receives eCoins for making delivery promises, we call him Burns.
- A merchant willing to trade eCoins for goods, named Apu.
- A consumer wanting to use eCoins to buy from the merchant, called Homer.
Homer would like to buy a Doughnut from Apu but is too lazy to go all the way to his shop. Luckily, Apu offers a delivery service but only with eCoins since every other payment method is too expensive for him and eCoins transactions cost nothing or almost nothing. Homer can buy eCoins from Burns.
Burns owns a nuclear power plant that can create more electricity than is currently used so he can sell promises of his unused output in form of eCoins. Marge makes sure that Burns is indeed capable of keeping this promise and decides to give him 100 eCoins backed by a promise of 1000 electricity units. This means that Burns promises to provide 10 units for each eCoin that somebody gives him.
Homer buys 10 eCoins from Burns for 10 dollars. Since eCoins are files and Burns is old-school, he gives Homer a floppy disk containing his eCoins. Homer saves them to his groupcash wallet on his phone with which he can easily transfer 1 eCoin to Apu for one Doughnut.
Apu sends the eCoin to Bunrs to get it confirmed that Homer hasn't spent it already somewhere else. Apu can then either use the eCoin to buy something himself or sell it to another consumer or back to Burns.
One rule would be what the currency can be backed by. Marge could decide that only promises of clean energy are accepted and not nuclear power. She could also ask for a fee from Burns for issuing the coins. There also needs to be a rule how the exchange rate between commodities and the currency is determined. It could be based on current market prices. This implies how much each unit costs in terms of national currency. The price could either be fixed or decided by the market. The backer may ask for a fee to confirm coins. He might also keep a percentage when buying back coins.
For Homer eCoins are a convenient way to buy goods. He can also back eCoins himself by offering a food tasting service and thus increase his spending power.
Apu might offer a discount for payment with eCoins since there are no transaction costs, the risk of fraud is close to zero and it supports the community and thus indirectly himself.
Burns can make use his otherwise unused capacity and thus effectively receives an interest-free loan by selling delivery promises. He may also keep a margin when buying back eCoins.
Marge's costs are for evaluating Burns' promises. There are no fixed costs. She can recover her costs by either putting a fee on issuing coins, or by running the account for Burns in turn of a monthly service charge.