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Cryptocurrency Based Basic Income Program Started In Finland

Posted by Soulskill on from the money-for-nothin' dept.

jovius writes: Krypto Fin ry, the association behind Fimkrypto cryptocurrency (FIMK), has started to provide each registered Finnish citizen a payment of 1000 FIMK per month in December. 1000 FIMK equals few dimes at the moment, and a bit over 100 people have registered so far. (The registration is free.)

FIMK is based on NXT 2nd generation crypto system; the add-ons and development making it into 2.5G. The roadmap includes payment cards and other technology to enable easier exchange between fiat currencies — FIMK, Bitcoins and others. Krypto Fin ry received 533 BTC in initial donations last Summer. FIMK can be traded for example on DGEX, and it's also a valid payment method in few stores in Finland.

7 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. It's a con... by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Con artists try to encourage entire nation to fall victim to their con by promising to pay them money every month.

    Seriously, if it looks too good to be true (they're paying you for doing nothing), it probably is.

    1. Re:It's a con... by Donwulff · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's a scam as uch as any cryptocurrency is a scam; ie. essentially a pyramid-scheme. But then, so is the current market economy system, and the cryptocurrencies attempt to make the initial share distribution slightly more fair (Ie. providing largest share to the founders & early adopters...). As such, basic income is one of the more interesting entries to the initial share generation, and one I would fully support...
      However, registration for the basic income requires social security number and bank provided secure, two-factor authentication for your personal information... And when someone asked for the national equivalent of privacy policy for the database ... they received an angry, indignant dismissal from the project. So... collecting personal identification information sufficient to take any loans desired in the name of the signed up person, check. Privacy and security? Ehh, lets think about that later, if we've got time... If it's not an outright con, it certainly looks like a disaster waiting to happen.

    2. Re:It's a con... by beelsebob · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Welfare looks nothing like this.

      This is literally "I'll give you something for nothing"

      Welfare involves people actually paying taxes. That is, it is not something for nothing, it is simply amortising the average person's income a bit to allow them to get through difficult times.

    3. Re:It's a con... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Welfare is redistribution of money collected from the taxpayer. What's being redistributed here?

      See, hardly the same thing, is it?

    4. Re: It's a con... by smaddox · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, but don't tell the government that. They really like thinking they're in control.

  2. Re:Sounds suspiciously like welfare. by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The USA is more than rich enough, especially if we stop the whole war-for-profit thing.

    We are? I thought we owed more money than anyone or anything ever has, ever.

    I'd be pretty "rich" too if I could borrow endlessly and never pay it back.

    Oh, and if it's "war for profit", where's the profit? How would stopping a supposedly profitable activity make us richer?

  3. Re:Sounds suspiciously like welfare. by radarskiy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "a society rich enough to afford one is pretty unimaginable in today's world."
    Have you in fact tried to imagine it?

    Let's try a thought experiment on a simplified economy. Poverty level is $25k per "household" vs. median household income of $50k. 15% of household are below the poverty level, and we'll flatten out the income distribution by saying every household below the poverty level has no income and every household above the poverty level brings in ~$59k.

    For a household below the poverty level to receive a basic income that after taxes gets them back to the poverty level would cost the households above the poverty level 7.5% in BI taxes.

    BUT

    "Western societies are clearly incapable of even providing the current levels of welfare let alone a vastly larger level."

    Once you have basic income you can start eliminating other programs which have been made redundant and their taxes. For example, Social Security "payroll taxes" alone are 6.2%. We already have order-of-magnitude agreement between basic income and the redundant costs, so there will be no "vastly larger level".