Slashdot Mirror
Software Developer Creates Personal Cryptocurrency (wired.com)
mirandakatz writes: If you want to pick Evan Prodromou's brain -- as many people often do -- you'll have to pay him. And not just a consulting fee: You'll have to pay him in his own personal cryptocurrency, dubbed Evancoin. Currently, 20 days after his Initial Coin Offering, a single Evancoin is worth $45. As Prodromou tells Scott Rosenberg at Backchannel, "I'm not above a stunt! But in this case I'm really serious about exploring how cryptocurrency is changing what we can do with money and how we think about it. Money is this sort of consensual hallucination, and I wanted to experiment around that." The story goes on to explain what, exactly, goes into creating a personal cryptocurrency, and whether Evancoin could becoming a phenomenon that spreads.
Because the creators can make more, and then they have cryptocurrency *and* dollars.
Also, like stocks and religion, the power of currency is equal to the number of people willing to hold it.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
This is a common practice already, but now with added buzzword-compliance.
For decades, organizations have issued scrips of various kinds. From gift certificates and coupons to the ubiquitous gift cards exchanged today, there's always some new way to get customers to invest in your product before they buy it. This guy now has his own scrip currency, with the gimmick of being a "cryptocurrency" so people can generate their own, essentially paying him in their time and recognition of his brand instead of an actual recognized currency.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Turing wasn't motivated by money. Leonard Kleinrock has explicitly said that economics was not a motivating factor in the invention of the internet; they just wanted to communicate with other universities through the computer. Berners-Lee gave away the world wide web protocols. He wasn't motivated by money. Faraday turned down a knighthood, because he wanted to figure things out, not simply make money.
Capitalism throttles innovation because capitalism wants to control above all else. Money is about power. Quaint old economic theories about money as a store of value and medium of exchange make nice stories but have no relevance to life outside the window.