Presentation - Regenerative Currency Basics
Channel: Alex Bernat
Date: 2022-03-17

#MakeMoneyBetter

Thank you for watching! This is my first presentation on Regenerative Currency Systems! Please forgive the simplicity and occasional bumpiness of my edits - I'm still learning the skills involved in making video content.

Please feel welcome to visit the central website for my work surrounding this model. Here you can find more information, including Make Money Better, which is a publicly licensed manuscript that outlines Regenerative Currency Systems in more detail:
https://www.make-money-better.com/

And please consider supporting this work on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/AlexBernat

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Regenerative Currency Systems are a proposed framework for using next-generation currencies to systemically eliminate poverty and to economically promote the lasting well-being of all communities and ecosystems.

Please keep in mind that this model is still in an early theoretical phase. It will have to be scrutinized, tested, and adjusted by many credible experts in many fields in order to make sure that it is truly effective, practical, and safe.

Some FAQs after sharing with my community so far:

Q. Isn't the slow decay of a Regenerative Currency just a new form of taxation?
A. It is similar in that it is a form of cost-sharing, but it has some key differences from conventional taxes. One difference is that it is completely voluntary - only people who freely choose to make exchanges for a Regenerative Currency will be part of sharing costs in this way. Another difference is that these costs can actually approach zero as real systems become more resilient and regenerative - Regenerative Currencies can become longer lasting whenever self-sustaining, privately funded, and voluntary solutions reduce the need for ongoing currency generation. This can be contrasted with existing systems where establishing passive, lasting, self-sustaining sources of basic need fulfillment would cause markets to crash (no sales would be taking place in the corresponding markets), so taxes must generally fund work that has a high (and often inflating) price tag. If you are interested in diving a bit deeper into my thoughts around currency decay, you can check out "The Cost of Entropy" which is an excerpt from the public manuscript Make Money Better. (Clicking will open a pdf of The Cost of Entropy): https://www.keepandshare.com/doc17/26872/the-cost-of-entropy?da=y

Q. Are we talking about cryptocurrencies? Is this model designed for blockchain?
A. No. At least, not necessarily. I think my use of the term "digital currency" might be a bit confusing amidst all the global attention on cryptocurrencies in recent years. Really, most of our exchanges are already digital, even with conventional fiat money. I'm finding that it may be clearer to refer to these as "next-generation" currencies rather than as "digital" ones. In Make Money Better I do discuss some ways to apply similar currency properties to cryptocurrency investment assets to benefit the common good, but blockchains present some major challenges when it comes to securely verifying the identities of providers and recipients of essential work. For these and other reasons, I think of Regenerative Currencies as a separate class of financial assets that stand apart from crypto, even if blockchains might optionally be used within some layers of how they function. Some Regenerative Currencies could conceivably be designed to function well without having anything to do with blockchain technology, while blockchains might perform central functions as a decentralized infrastructure behind some other implementations of this model.

Q. Wait, what? Huh? Could you explain that again? (This is the most common question I have received.)
A. Yes - I can explain this again. In fact, I intend to focus most of my work in the near future on creating much more approachable content surrounding this model, and I also welcome the work of others who might be interested in similarly creating easy-to-digest content. (I know that my own skillset is limited, and I celebrate the fact than many people can articulate these ideas much more accessibly than I can myself.) I have carefully chosen to release my ideas within publicly licensed materials both to make them free to access and to protect this model from becoming proprietary. This means that you can share about this model within your own content without stepping on any toes, and in fact you may make money while selling and redistributing my publicly licensed work as well.

This video is available for public use under the CC-BY license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The Regenerative Currency System model is outlined and discussed in a much greater level of detail within the public manuscript of the book Make Money Better. You may read, edit, adapt, and distribute this public manuscript under a CC-BY-SA license:
https://www.make-money-better.com/collaborate.html
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/