The problem with regular money
“Give me the right to issue and control a Nation’s money and I care not who governs the country.”
Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Banker
We are taught to believe that money is value neutral and that there is a “gold standard.” That the coin we use has “actual” value. This is all based on a lot of assumptions. Ultimately, it is a confidence trick with dire consequences for us all. We use our national currency because this is “normal”. We do it unthinkingly not realizing that in doing so we are implicitly supporting and funding the status quo. Currently, the status quo is killing the biosphere.
Money is created out of thin air by banks and then loaned to the general public. Did you know that you pay interest to use a national currency? The interest that banks demand bank is a root driver for the economy to continually expand. As the economy expands, natural capital is transformed into assets that can be traded. For example, a rainforest is cleared so that gold can be ripped out from under it. The cold metal is valued more than the living fabric of our planet because banks can hoard it in their vaults. The current economic system drives ecological breakdown.
When we open a bank account and put money in, the bank invests that money in a range of extremely shitty things. High street banks will invest in arms companies selling arms to the Saudis, oil companies devastating ecological systems and giant food corporations that are at the front line of the war against the biosphere. When we use regular money this is on us too. We are participating in and subsidizing an economic system that is killing our planet.
Subsidizing the Super Wealthy
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
Henry Ford
Banks and corporations have become incredibly efficient at concentrating wealth. In the UK the chief executive of house builder Persimmon just awarded himself a £110m bonus. Meanwhile, more than 300,000 people in Britain – equivalent to one in every 200 are homeless. Globally inequality is at a record level. Currently, the richest 1% hold over 50% of the world’s wealth. After the bankers crashed the economy in 2008, politicians bailed out the banks with £500 billion of taxpayers money and then declared an Age of Austerity cutting funding for social initiatives likes schools, hospitals and shelters. When we use regular money – bankers get richer.
The fact that there are more billionaires than ever before isn’t just grotesquely unfair. It distorts democracy. 15 Billionaires own the US media and the UK is not much better. They protect their investments in fossil fuels. They buy politicians and in their deranged, megalomaniac state they move their wealth around to not pay tax and spend money distorting the dire ecological warnings erupting all around us. Rupert Murdoch just sold media company for $66 Billion and he still blocks accurate information about climate change coming out. He is so powerful he can call Donald Trump whenever he wants and call him a “fucking moron.”
We can take power away from the increasingly remote and disturbingly unhinged oligarchs driving the Sixth Mass Extinction event on our planet by creating alternative financial systems that are distributed and owned by the people.
What is good about Cryptocurrencies?
Cryptocurrencies are not owned and controlled by any central entities (e.g. banks or governments). This means that traditional costs we associate with transacting value are avoided. Distributing the mechanics of the financial system and removing the needs for banks also distributes the traditional power associated with the control of money.
All the information about the currency and about the transaction history of any coin is held in the blockchain. This makes fraud very expensive and unlikely. The entire history of all the money is held in the money
Cryptocurrencies are easily transportable. They can be wired instantly between any two people using the internet. They have little to zero transaction fees and no human intervention between payor and payee, high anonymity, and even functionality.
Money evolves, like anything else, and the natural evolution of money is always as a store of value that is easier to move, more secure, and more private.
Key points
- Decentralized . So no one government entity can quietly mint money for their own purposes and have access to your transactions, accounts, etc. By making use of “distributed ledger” everybody knows what is going on – decentralized trust.
- Security. So nobody can forge or steal your money.
- Privacy. Your transactions can’t be seen and reported to other entities.
- Functionality. This is the more technical parts of the blockchain in Cryptocurrencies but suffice to say some of the “intrinsic value” of a coin is the functionality and computational power used to “mine” that functionality.
Why Carbon Coin?
The original Cryptocurrency was Bitcoin a digital payment system launched in 2009 by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. A network of coders with powerful computers has slowly “mined” more bitcoin since then by running complex computations that adhere to a set of founding principles. The early adopters of Bitcoin got very rich. The market value of all bitcoin in the world is around $132 billion at current prices, roughly comparable to the current value of McDonald’s (MCD).
There are only 21 million Bitcoins that can be mined in total. It seems likely that a limited supply of the currency may cause prices to continue to increase. The soaring price of Bitcoins puts this currency out of the reach of most people. In response, we are seeing a rapid proliferation of other Cryptocurrencies. Many, if not most, of these currencies will fail to take off. For any person interested in Cryptocurrencies there is a choice to be made – how to choose a currency to invest in from such a large number of options?
For anyone with concerns about the environment – CarbonCoin is the obvious choice. The people who designed the currency have built in two novel features meaning that the currency is better than others. Firstly, the currency is designed to use radically less energy than Bitcoin. Secondly, 10% of the currency is held in a wallet that will be used to fund ecological restoration. Should the coin become widely adopted this wallet will be worth hundreds of millions of pounds and will fund the ecological restoration of vast areas of land. The more people that use the currency – the more our world will benefit.
As more people use the currency this 10% will become a significant global fund. 10% of Bitcoins total value is over $100,000,000. That would enable the restoration of vast areas of land. Carboncoin has been created with a total circulation of 16 Billion coins (i.e. much more than Bitcoin) meaning the wallet could become much bigger. What if everyone concerned with environmental issues globally agreed to useCarbonCoin? What if major environmental and conservation NGOs useCarbonCoin and encourage their members to do so? What if everyone paying for environmental services (tree planting, conservation, ecological restoration) chose to do so usingCarbonCoin? The currency could rapidly become a significant economic force in the world contributing to a massive new wave of tree planting.
A cryptocurrency will only become widely used and increase in value if it has the support of a community that gets behind it. The fact that CarbonCoin has a mission in the word beyond just being a token of value will give it an advantage and should accelerate it being adopted by a network of influencers who help spread the word. Furthermore, CarbonCoin could become the go-to currency for environmentalists everywhere. Whether people are paying for clean energy, tree planting or any environmental service – why not use CarbonCoin as the currency and the ecological community reaps the benefits.
How to get involved
If you are interested in buying coins you first should download a wallet from hereand study the site to inform yourself.
Once you have bought your coins, help us to get the word out. The more people that are using CarbonCoins the faster their value will grow… and the more trees will get planted.
Is this risky?
Yes, there is always risk involved in buying a cryptocurrency online. Especially at an early stage the price can fluctuate widely. The value of CarbonCoin could change radically in a short time period.
Risk warning – You should not invest in or deal in any financial product unless you understand its nature and the extent of your exposure to risk. You should also be satisfied that it is suitable for you in the light of your circumstances and financial position. Different investment products have varied levels of exposure to risks and to different combinations of risks.
