[iDC] where is the OpenSource currency?

Fri May 18 00:15:56 EDT 2007

http://www.p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Exchange_Infrastructure_Projects

http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Money

Hi Andreas,

You ask 'where is the open source currency'

The answer is, as you can see above in the first link, there are quite a
number of different approaches, but which I feel are coalescing.

There is the emerging social lending sphere.

There is a growing group of locally oriented alternative/community
currencies movement. (James Taris in cc)

There is an emerging movement for monetary reform or monetary
transformation, which critiques the very protocol of our current monetary
system. (bernard lietaer, thomas greco)

And now, there is the open money movement, which aims to create a universal
software to enable the direct social production of money. (francois rey, and
Noubel in cc)

These 4 trends are finding their way to each other, and the latter is
probably closest to what you call 'open source currencies'. It goes beyond
the other initiatives, because what it wants is the creation of the
possibility of a vast ecosystem of local or affinity based systems, using
money or not, and to make them interoperable.

Interesting is to find out how this can interplay with the virtual
currencies.

The second link above is a good place to have an overview,

Michel

LIST OF PROJECTS

Here are projects that seek to create an underlying infrastructure for
p2p-based exchanges, monetary, gift, or otherwise.

Community Exchange
System<http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Community_Exchange_System>,
linking complementary currencies in a global exchange

Cosmopool <http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Cosmopool>, community life without
money

Friend2Friend <http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Friend2Friend> project, from
Robert Upton, at http://www.altruists.org/projects/ge/ff

Giftegrity <http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Giftegrity> of Timothy Wilken,
http://p2pfoundation.net/Giftegrity

Give Get Nation <http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Give_Get_Nation> from William
Shanley, http://p2pfoundation.net/Give_Get_Nation

Global Free Economy
Project<http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Global_Free_Economy_Project>

Hospitality Exchange
Networks<http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Hospitality_Exchange_Networks>

Open Money <http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Open_Money>,
http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Money

OpenXchange<http://www.p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Exchange_Infrastructure_Projects?title=OpenXchange&action=edit>,
from Francois Rey et al, http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Xchange

P2P Yardsale Engine <http://www.p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Yardsale_Engine>,
http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Yardsale_Engine

Ripple <http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Ripple> standard protocol for routing
payments through arbitrary currency networks

Larry Penslinger's m-valued monetary systems,
http://www.geocities.com/m_valuedlets/

On 5/17/07, Andreas Schiffler <aschiffler at ferzkopp.net> wrote:
>
>
> I would be careful with extrapolations - the numbers are likely hyped
> and not purely indicative of a social trend that will continue in the
> same way.
>
> Currently, China is experiencing a Stock Market bubble of extraordinary
> proportions:
>     http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5415cad8-b0a1-11db-8a62-0000779e2340.html
> and 'Holding' companies like Tencent are likely attempting to attract as
> much investment as they can during this phase to
> - solidify their market position
> - make the management rich
> by making their growth look as plump and juicy as possible.
>
> The number of registrations is actually not that relevant (and as you
> mention the 2+ ratio when compared to the number of internet users).
>     http://blogs.nmss.com/communications/2006/05/im_registered_t.html
>
> Interestingly enough, the registered user vs. active user ration is
> better than Skype's (20:1 for Skype vs 10:1 for QQ). I think this can be
> explained by the fact that Skype faces a lot more competition from
> pretty much any other messenger software out there, VoIP systems, etc.
> etc. - so people will register to try it but don't stick with it. And
> Skypes growth in user-numbers were definitely assisted using marketing
> dollars with their "Free Calls to Canada and the US" offer which was
> available during 2006 (probably to satisfy a growth clause in their eBay
> deal).
>
> I think the uptake of QQ is mostly due to the lack of credit-cards in
> China. And if QQ threatens the value of the Yuan, the government will
> likely proceed to pull the plug on Tencent - that's the beauty of the
> 'virtual' from a more traditional power-structure point of view:
> shutting down the system is extremely easy (format c: or rm -rf /). OK,
> they'll probably tax it instead to it becomes uncompetitive.
>
> I do agree that virtual money will have a huge impact globally in the
> future, the same as 'plastic money' changed our consumer behavior in the
> 'west' over the last decades.  But to put it in perspective, Tencent is
> still a small player compared to MC, Visa and Amex in terms of revenues.
>
> So where is the OpenSource currency?
>
>
> Julian Kücklich wrote:
> > Just an update on the virtual QQ currency which I mentioned in one of
> > my last posts to the list.
> >
> > -----------------------
> >
> > Tencent Holding's massive, massive QQ messaging + voice + mobile +
> > gaming + everything service continues to drive its revenues in China
> > with the company breaking US$100 Million in revenues for the first
> > quarter of 2007, according to Pacific Epoch.
> >
> > What is massive massive?
> >
> > 28.5 Million Peak Concurrent Users (PCU)
> > 253.7 Million Active Registered Users which grew 9.1 percent in the
> > last quarter.
> >
> > To put the total Registered users in context, the US population is
> > just over 301 Million people, so, at this rate, there will be more
> > active registered users of QQ than the whole population of the US in
> > the next 6 months!!!
> >
> > Interestingly, this implies that most Chinese QQ users have 2+
> > accounts as the total Internet population in China was only 137
> > Million in January 2007... or the government is having trouble
> > counting everyone.
> >
> > What is most interesting about the report for online gaming is that
> > the largest, and fastest growing portion of Tencent's revenues are
> > coming from value-added services: $64.9 Million an increase of nearly
> > 15 percent from the previous quarter.
> >
> > This is where games and the ubiquitous virtual currency Q-coins are,
> > no doubt, raking in the big bucks.
> >
> >
> > Tencent Q1 Revenues Hit US$100M
> > 700.HK, Internet, SP, Tencent, WVAS
> > Posted by: Elias Glenn on May 16, 2007 | 19:05
> > Editorial Summary
> >
> > Chinese Internet company Tencent (0700.HK) announced US$100 million in
> > first quarter 2007 revenue, up 8.4 percent quarter-on-quarter and 19.8
> > year-on-year, on Wednesday afternoon. The company's $37.5 million in
> > first quarter profit was up ten percent from the previous quarter and
> > 16.2 percent year-on-year. Internet value-added services revenues
> > totaled $64.9 million, up 14.9 percent quarter-on-quarter. Mobile
> > value-added service revenues rose 1.8 percent quarter-on-quarter to
> > $25.4 million. Online advertising revenues, meanwhile, fell 9.1
> > percent quarter-on-quarter to $9.6 million, though this number was up
> > 77.3 percent from the year-ago period. The company's IM platform QQ
> > recorded 28.5 million peak concurrent users in the first quarter, up
> > 16.3 percent quarter-on-quarter. The number of active QQ accounts
> > increased 9.1 percent quarter-on-quarter to 253.7 million.
> >
> > from http://tinyurl.com/2hlber
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (
> distributedcreativity.org)
> iDC at mailman.thing.net
> http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc
>
> List Archive:
> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/
>
> iDC Photo Stream:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/
>
>

-- 
The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
alternatives.

Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p

Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html;
video interview, at
http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by
http://www.ws-network.com/04_team.htm
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20070518/7fbda44d/attachment-0001.htm