Official Currencies

Official Currencies are currencies that are in use by the government, and in most cases are the predominant currencies used by companies. In the past, gold was an official Currency, and now, emeralds and iron are both official currencies.

## Gold

### Currency

Shortly after build being first created, the first business was created. It was decided that items that this or any other business would sell would be priced in gold. There were no restrictions about how much gold could be printed.

The first transaction in build was made around this time, when Starcat purchased a flight of the bumblebee egg from the hat shop for gold. This gold came from Starcat's inventory, and that ended up being what future gold came from as well.

After major businesses (especially figure businesses) such as Figure Co. and AT Toys were created, gold became more and more used, as it was still the sole currency that anyone used in build. Similar to the previous purchases, players just took gold directly from their unlimited supply of it in their creative inventory, and used it to buy as many products as they wanted, or as they were allowed to.

There were a couple of ideas proposed to make a task giver, which would make it illegal to get gold from your creative inventory, and instead, there would be a limited supply of gold that players could tap into if they did specific tasks. The plans didn't make it too far, so there was never any indication about what the tasks might be, but it is assumed they would be some sort of work or community service that people wouldn't want to do for free.

While gold started out fine, as most products that were very popular had some sort of supply cap, things became bad when the Figure Co. Easter Event and Stars's Birthday Event released. Because these were the first events in Figure Co., or for that matter the first official events in any company, there was very high demand for it, and, similar to other Figure Co. products at the time there was a limit of how many each player could buy per day. While this rule was technically followed, it was also manipulated.

One player printed absurd amounts of gold and gave it to Figure Co. to "pre-order" more figure boxes, meaning that he would be given the boxes each day until the event ends considering how much gold was being given. While Figure Co. did oblige as they were legally required to, they were not very happy to do so.

To prevent this from ever happening again, the players of build collectively decided to slowly phase out gold and use emeralds and iron as their new currency.

### Ditching gold

Gold didn't disappear overnight, instead, companies, at various times stopped using it. Some companies decided to stop using it as quick as possible, so they pretty much froze their purchases, as they didn't allow gold, but no other currencies were created yet. Other companies stuck with gold for some time, but then eventually transitioned.

The plans to get rid of gold were being made at around the same time the government was being organized and the government district started to be created. To encourage people to get rid of gold, the government, which also ran the bank, established a couple things. One of the thing tracked companies that were still using gold and which ones weren't, with the eventual aim being that all companies would eventually get rid of gold. Another thing that was put in place was punishments for those who used gold after a specific time. If you kept using gold for too long, the government would get rid of public roads to your business or location, meaning that it would get substantially less traffic. Overall, this program was a huge success, as the government was able to get every major business and almost every minor business to stop using gold.

### As decoration

After gold no longer was the currency, the government made it illegal for gold to ever be used again as an official or a protected currency, mostly due to the insane amount that was lying around from prior to the currency change.

Because of this, many players saw gold blocks as a safe block to make decorations out of, as other ores could easily become protected currency in the future. Many buildings still use gold to this day, such as the casino or the KFC building. It is also somewhat common for gold to be seen as a sort of placeholder expensive item, as emerald blocks can only either be printed by the government, or made by players after sacrificing 9 emeralds. Things such as Stripes's throne include gold blocks in them because of this.

## Emeralds

### Before becoming a currency

Before emeralds became an official currency, they were very rarely in use, as, for a long time, gold was the currency used by all companies, and emeralds were just a decoration block (that was rarely used).

However, after the gold hyperinflation, some companies just decided to straight up ditch gold and freeze their sales. It was decided that emeralds would be the currency to replace gold, so these companies waited for emeralds to roll out. Eventually, every company used emeralds, except a couple, including Figure Fun, which used netherite, and Building Co. which still used gold right up until emeralds were being made.

Because more and more companies were freezing their purchases, everyone was trying to get rid of their gold by going to a company that hadn't yet and tried to purchase things from there with gold. The last companies that kept gold ended up getting a lot of sales as people were trying to buy anything they could. Because of the freezing sales, the economy also pretty much got destroyed, so players kind of just kept what they had. The entire world was focused on the emeralds, so very little development occurred in the world during the transition, with the exception of buildings made by the government that help assist with the transition, such as the bank.

### Becoming a currency

To recognize sales made by companies prior to the currency change, the government designated a specific amount of emeralds each company would receive, generally correlating to the success and amount of sales the company got while they were using gold. The emeralds would be given to the owners of the companies, who could use it for their personal reasons, or for the company. This would prevent players who got a lot of sales prior to the emerald transition being left in the dark, with other players having their products in stock, but not actually getting anything themselves. In addition to the company payouts, each player in build that was around during the times of gold was given a stack of emeralds for free, and this was also given to players who joined shortly after. In addition to this, there was a chest with emeralds for the "government" but this didn't really end up going anywhere.

All of these emeralds will put inside different chest with signs for each recipient. The chests were placed in between the old (at the time current) Figure Co. building, and the gold drill. Once each player took out their emeralds and there was nothing left in the chest, that chest was destroyed. Eventually, every chest got destroyed, however, to this day, any player gets a stack of emeralds once they join build for the first time.

### As a currency

Once emeralds were put in to circulation, companies immediately started selling products for them, and this ended up going pretty well. At first, there weren't too many emeralds, so prices for most products were 1-10 emeralds depending on the cost. This was a good thing in part, because it means there was less inequality, and you didn't need a very large amount of emeralds to buy even the most expensive products. However, this was also a bad thing, because if 1 emerald was the cheapest something could be, there are many things that would be way overpriced.

Overtime, more and more emeralds were being printed, typically in the form of giving all online or active players a varying amount of emeralds (usually 64). This wasn't to drive inflation, it was just to keep the economy going, as if more players had more emeralds, they would likely buy more products. These payouts have happened a pretty large amount of times, so it's hard to say exactly how many there were and when they took place.

Because of this, prices for items, especially in companies such as Figure Co. started to rise. Taking Figure Co. as an example, their most expensive box used to be only 5 emeralds, but during the bedrock event, one of the boxes costed a stack of emeralds, and in events after that, prices were still very high. In addition to this, because Figure Co. pretty much ran over half the economy, emeralds started to consolidate around Starcat6020 and his pets, and there just wasn't too much to spend it on.

This created a vicious cycle, because if Figure Co. gets more profits, they will see emeralds as worth less, so they will increase the prices of their products. On the other side of it, people who purchase Figure Co. products will have fewer emeralds, so they won't be able to purchase anything else. Because they don't have many emeralds, they will see emeralds as worth more, so they will decrease the price of their products. The more emeralds get spent, the worse this problem becomes. If you put all of this together, it results in major inequality.

Despite these problems, emeralds are still one of two remaining official currencies and are the most widely used and understood currency to price products in.

### As decoration

Decoration with emeralds is very rare. This is because using emerald blocks cannot be placed (aside from the government) unless 9 emeralds are taken out of the player's inventory to make them. Because of this, there are very few emerald blocks around, however, there are still a few, such as as a part of Stripes's throne.

While players and companies have very few emerald blocks used, the government is allowed to use as many as they want. In the past, back when the bank existed in the south, there was a huge emerald cube, which replaced the gold cube. Currently, the department of finance building has an emerald block roof, however, aside from these situations, there are very few instances of emeralds being used as decoration.

## Iron

### Becoming a currency

Prior to iron becoming a currency, the only currency in build was emeralds. As previously mentioned in the emeralds section, this created some problems, as emeralds were still somewhat scare (only about 10 stacks in circulation). This created some issues, because many products simply were not intended to have large amounts of value. A good example of this is the newspapers. While they were meant to have a price, the purpose was never to generate a profit, and it wasn't meant to be a burden on the buyer.

Because of this, products such as the newspapers either had to stop going on sale and wait for emeralds to lose value, or make their product cost 1 emerald, which would likely drive down sales as players wouldn't see it as worth it.

Because of these problems, it was decided that iron would become another official currency, and would have the exact same protections as emeralds. The only difference between the 2 currencies would be that you could always trade in 1 emerald for 32 iron or vice versa.

### As a currency

Iron has stayed pretty consistent throughout its time, it has faced pretty much identical successes and problems that emeralds have, with the only difference being that iron is worth a lot less.

There has also been another issue however, which is that iron has been starting to become irrelevant over time. If the whole reason the currency was added in the first place was to make a less valuable currency, then it is sort of pointless at this point because emeralds are becoming more useless.

While it is hard to say exactly how much the value of emeralds have gone down, due to not having proper information on emeralds in circulation, as well as increasing inequality, it is very clear that the value has decreased by about half. If 1 emerald is now worth what 16 iron used to be worth, iron doesn't seem as useful as it used to be, and considering even when it was created there was very little that costed under 10 iron, now it seems useless to have iron, or at the very least it would seem smart to increase the value relative to emeralds.

Because of this, there have been multiple attempts, to remove iron as a currency, or to change its value. However, none of these attempts have been successful due to lack of popular support, so iron still remains an official currency worth 1/32 of an emerald.

### As decoration

The decoration rules are pretty much the same as emeralds, however, because they don't symbolize wealth and power the same way emeralds do, government buildings don't really use them, so iron isn't really used at all for the purposes of building.