The Intersection of Community and Currency

A Language of Connection and Belonging

Overview

Humans are social beings. We surround ourselves with like-minded individuals to grow and experience new things. The spectrum of possible experiences one can have based on their family, culture, and surrounding physical environment is pretty vast.

People in North America live in a and society where going to school, earning a good salary and working for a respectable company is a primary modality of being. In Thailand, becoming a monk and temporarily renouncing the physical world for spiritual development is a common path. In Costa Rica, one can find individuals who practice yoga and surf all day for both fun and income. A common thread among these examples is the need to transact.

In a world where so much is motivated by trade, currency can also be thought of as language. It is an expression of how we value things — time, physical goods, attention, infrastructure, etc. When two parties are using the same currency, they are speaking the same language and can price items accordingly. The logical extension is that everyone should be using one currency, so we can have a universal language for the global economy.

The Struggle for Coherence

However, in such a diverse world it is only natural that people value things very differently.

Think of an artist displaying her paintings at an event. An attendee sees a painting he wants that is priced at $1750. The Artist values the painting based on how expensive the materials were, the value of her time, as well as the value of the quality of her work. The attendee might think about how much value they would get from buying the painting or how many hours they would have to work to afford it. As you can see each of them value the painting differently and if they want to transact they’ll have to reach a consensus.

So, not only is there a range in the value placed on certain things, but for each person, the system of valuing the medium of exchange could be completely different. If currencies are languages that express posited denominations of value for goods and services, it is not only the medium that matters (ie USD), but also the perspective and relationship that each person has towards one unit of that respective medium. This is why local currencies have such a unique value proposition (literally). Organized groups of individuals who understand each other through a shared set of experiences or beliefs have the ability to operate an independent economy, where all participants speak a more uniform language and have a system of values that everyone in the community can relate to.

I can hear the sirens going off already — “But what happens when you have to leave your isolated system of value? Doesn’t that make transacting impossible outside of your own system?” Let’s return to that later.

What is Community?

In much of the Western world today, we see a lot of companies and groups in general talking about community but what does it mean to be part of a community?

Community commonly defined as:

a group of people who come together through a common interest

We are provided with a unique frame to think about how many types of communities there currently are, and how many more could be. It is really exciting when we consider how each one of these communities already has the foundation of a value system that everyone understands.

Traditionally, community was limited to geographic location. Today, with increased connectivity through the internet, community can be built through just a shared view or common interest.

The Internet and Communities

The internet has enabled communities to expand their networks without the need to aggregate into a common physical location. Initially through forums, and followed by the rise of social media platforms such as Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter, connecting people with shared interests has become remarkably easier. This also creates conditions for faster spreading of information.

“Crypto Twitter” is a great example of this. Whenever an important message needs to be spread through the community, Twitter facilitates the distribution so that any active person can know within a matter of hours. This can include news releases, technical knowledge, and of course memes.

Additionally, industries like software development rely on technology-driven communities that share the same attitudes, interests, and goals. One of these groups is the open source community, which brings together technology, community, and collaboration. These kinds of communities are not defined by location but by ideas, values, and skills. The people that lead in these groups are chosen through merit.

Justus Perlwitz, a current member of the Native team, says:

Working in software development practically wouldn’t work if it wasn’t for the many helpful (tech) communities that exist out there. Especially when working with the latest tech, it is always a group endeavor. You suffer through the same struggle and celebrate together when you find an exciting solution for a problem you know you can now share with many other like-minded people. All my friends are computers.

Crypto Communities

Local currencies have existed for hundreds of years. In our whitepaper, we discuss the Berkshares currency in Massachusetts. They have their own paper bills and many local organizations (including banks) accept it in their region. This model has proven that federal governments aren’t required to maintain the value of currencies.

The emergence of Bitcoin was another evolution for currency models. It was the first time a group of people could attribute value to a decentralized, purely digital asset that had a limited supply, and acted as a uniform medium of exchange. The value grew because people chose to value it. Trust in math became more important than trust in organizations to execute a transaction.

After the rise of the Bitcoin community and currency, many other virtual currencies started to form. These currency’s communities were initially focused on the cryptography and underlying code (and still are to some degree), but have also started in many cases to have more symbolic value, or value based on an underlying asset.

The rise of Ethereum added a different element to the mix. Now almost anyone can create their own digital token, and attach any meaning to it all. In many cases today, the tokens are created for upcoming projects, but a community (and therefore value) can be built around pretty much anything.

Native and Communities

Native is a tool that keeps people together through the medium of a currency at the base of a local economy. This helps communities realize the value that they inherently already hold or plan to consciously create.

Ultimately, our vision for the world is one where every individual can allocate their time, money, and energy into systems that they truly care about. If someone wants to support a local theatre, there should be a Tribe for that. These local Tribes are more effective at allocating funds into relevant projects, because they understand their group’s needs.

There are two fundamental reasons that cause one to join or build a community — to meet a desire/need or to be in service to others. When neither of these are being fulfilled, it may be time to leave that community for another one. Or on a less serious note, maybe someone just wants to buy something they can’t get in their community.

Finally, to address the sirens from before, one of the other fundamental components of Native is that it allows for each Tribe to plug into a universal liquidity network. Through the Bancor Protocol, all local currencies created on Native are instantly tradable, allowing communities to transact between each other at will. This freedom of choice of systems, all comprehensively placed into a global framework of value, has the potential to provide everyone from the monk, to the surfer, to the corporate employee with the freedom to be valued by everyone by simply living the life they choose to live.