I don't have many ideas that would help get it circulating. Maybe look for smaller communities that source a lot of supplies locally and launch pilot programs there. You could get the whole community on-board since you could be injecting a significant amount of money into a small economy.
That's an interesting thought. Money can circulate more in smaller local economies where everyone contributes.
PayPal broke into the scene by going onto eBay, creating a bunch of auctions and saying, "We accept PayPal." Then people asked what PayPal was. We could do something similar.
Another commenter, Kinnard, suggested that poor communities whose members all have Gresham Accounts might naturally exchange GD amongst themselves. We'd have to figure out a way to make that easy to do. Not every low-income person is going to have access to phone apps, etc.
We're targeting lower-income people because they may not often have a choice about whether to spend USD or GD. They spend whatever money they happen to have. They need no incentive to spend GD over USD when GD is their only choice.
Convenience and lack of transaction fees could be an incentive to spend. Sending USD to friends and family typically involve waiting periods, transaction fees and inconvenient processes (cheques, email money transfers). Of course, Venmo and Paypal have improved this in recent years.
Yes. We would want to provide the basic functionality of PayPal/Venmo, but for both USD and GD.
Combining the above two ideas, you can launch in communities outside the U.S. where financial inclusion is limited. There are many places where the majority of people don't have bank accounts. They already lack the advantages of credit/debit cards, paypal, etc. They may not have enough assets to make opening a bank account worthwhile. Granting people there basic income and GD accounts could solve both these problems. Plus, by choosing a location with a smaller economy and lower cost of living, you could have a more pronounced effect with the same amount of investment. You could team up with a charity that already gives money to these communities.
Once GD is accepted at some big online retailers, we can provide poor international communities with GD basic incomes that they can spend at e.g. Amazon or trade among themselves. That's basically my plan for international expansion. Before the GD arrives in the U.S., it's unclear whether we'd want or need it to have the ability to automatically convert to USD. And if we don't, perhaps we could issue paper GD internationally, which would be useful for communities who don't have as much access to digital technology. It's illegal to print any kind of currency in the U.S., so we wouldn't do anything similar here.
Maybe create a service for merchants where they could spend their GD. Some kind of customer loyalty program that pays out rewards in GD, or an advertising service that lets merchants advertise to people with GD accounts.
Anyone can use their GD to buy FGD, but I'm not sure it would make sense for merchants to want to do that. I like your idea of selling advertising. The ads will give users ideas about where they can spend their GD (and their USD).
Honestly, getting a new currency into regular circulation seems like a really hard problem.
Yeah. And it would probably be near impossible if the U.S. government were already paying its citizens a basic income. There needs to be something fundamentally broken about the way a currency is being managed in order for it to be susceptible to disruption. I believe USD fits the bill.
That's an interesting thought. Money can circulate more in smaller local economies where everyone contributes.
PayPal broke into the scene by going onto eBay, creating a bunch of auctions and saying, "We accept PayPal." Then people asked what PayPal was. We could do something similar.
Another commenter, Kinnard, suggested that poor communities whose members all have Gresham Accounts might naturally exchange GD amongst themselves. We'd have to figure out a way to make that easy to do. Not every low-income person is going to have access to phone apps, etc.
We're targeting lower-income people because they may not often have a choice about whether to spend USD or GD. They spend whatever money they happen to have. They need no incentive to spend GD over USD when GD is their only choice.
Convenience and lack of transaction fees could be an incentive to spend. Sending USD to friends and family typically involve waiting periods, transaction fees and inconvenient processes (cheques, email money transfers). Of course, Venmo and Paypal have improved this in recent years.
Yes. We would want to provide the basic functionality of PayPal/Venmo, but for both USD and GD.
Combining the above two ideas, you can launch in communities outside the U.S. where financial inclusion is limited. There are many places where the majority of people don't have bank accounts. They already lack the advantages of credit/debit cards, paypal, etc. They may not have enough assets to make opening a bank account worthwhile. Granting people there basic income and GD accounts could solve both these problems. Plus, by choosing a location with a smaller economy and lower cost of living, you could have a more pronounced effect with the same amount of investment. You could team up with a charity that already gives money to these communities.
Once GD is accepted at some big online retailers, we can provide poor international communities with GD basic incomes that they can spend at e.g. Amazon or trade among themselves. That's basically my plan for international expansion. Before the GD arrives in the U.S., it's unclear whether we'd want or need it to have the ability to automatically convert to USD. And if we don't, perhaps we could issue paper GD internationally, which would be useful for communities who don't have as much access to digital technology. It's illegal to print any kind of currency in the U.S., so we wouldn't do anything similar here.
Maybe create a service for merchants where they could spend their GD. Some kind of customer loyalty program that pays out rewards in GD, or an advertising service that lets merchants advertise to people with GD accounts.
Anyone can use their GD to buy FGD, but I'm not sure it would make sense for merchants to want to do that. I like your idea of selling advertising. The ads will give users ideas about where they can spend their GD (and their USD).
Honestly, getting a new currency into regular circulation seems like a really hard problem.
Yeah. And it would probably be near impossible if the U.S. government were already paying its citizens a basic income. There needs to be something fundamentally broken about the way a currency is being managed in order for it to be susceptible to disruption. I believe USD fits the bill.
Good luck!
Thanks for your thoughts!