Setting Up The Agora: On Creating The Marketplace
After setting up the currency and the bank, a marketplace will need to be created. What’s the value in a currency if there’s nothing to trade for it? There needs to be a reason for the currency, to make it useful.
In the current zeitgeist around cryptocurrencies, Non Fungible Tokens, or NFTs, are the commodity being traded around. The market centering on NFTs focuses on artistic endeavors: many NFTs are being sold as either stand-alone art pieces or parts of a limited collection, and some are advertised as funding such projects as video games, cartoon shows, comic books, etc(1). It had been hailed as a way for artists to make a more stable living off their art early on, and there have been talented and hard-working artists who were able to sell their art successfully on NFT trading sites like OpenSea and Foundation.app.(2)
However, such a market has many downsides to it: most NFTs being sold on sites like OpenSea are sold more as an investment rather than as an artistic item. Such collections like Bored Apes or CyberPunks do not warrant much artistic merit, as they all act as slight variations of the same template, as if they were mass-produced or AI-generated in order to make a quick buck. The environmental issues of cryptocurrencies are also present in NFTs, and the amount of scams present in the sphere is alarming. Art theft has been a reoccurring problem, and even the works of artists now deceased had been stolen to be sold on the NFT market. Overall, it is such an unstable and financially unsafe place that it represents the worst kind of market systems. (3)
Of course, there are ways to fix those problems: decreasing the energy needs of NFTs or making the energy used more renewable; creating a more consumer-friendly marketplace with businesses for consumer protection being utilized; marketplace sites using certain systems to protect artists from getting their work stolen; etc., etc. Such solutions are not exactly difficult to create, and with enough demand new marketplaces for NFTs can put such solutions to work. In that way, we can have some inkling of an independent economy.
There is still an issue, however: while the NFT market may act as an example of an early crypto-based market and economy, it is still fully dependent on the modern political economies for its value. One makes a profit in crypto for the sole purpose of converting it into accepted currencies like USD, because the only way to get general commodities is to purchase them using the prominent currencies in our society, that is, fiat currencies. Without the required goods and services being traded with cryptocurrency itself, there is no chance at an independent crypto-based economy.
So, where do we begin? If we ever are to create our parallel economy, we will need something more than just a currency and a bank. What businesses need to be focused on, what trades to be developed in our shrub of an agora?
In all civilizations, the beginning point has been the move from nomadism to agriculture. Farming has been a rather profitable business, as well as a necessary one for growth. Thanks to food being an ever-present need for our survival, it would make sense that we begin our economy through the production and trade of food. Afterwards, the other useful trades, such as construction, maintenance work, etc., can be incorporated, as well as the arts and entertainment. Once food is set as the foundation, everything else follows.
A farm or community garden, then, must be established. Self-sufficiency is needed, but the production should also account for two other requirements: that a portion of the food can be used for mutual aid, with the community able to take what they may need to survive; and that another portion can be used for trade, so that the labor for such production is paid in equal value and may help the farm or garden further produce or be able to get other goods.
The portion meant for trade may only be exchanged via barter or with the currency intended for the crypto-economy; this will help incentivize people to either use it or to trade directly in goods. Either way, such will help lay the framework for the marketplace of our economy, all while in accordance to mutualist theory and principles. The seeds have been set.
With that established, and more people beginning to use the currency for purchase of the farm’s products, we may branch out into other trades. Others may be able to make their own garden or farm, trading with our cryptocurrency instead of the prominent currency used and controlled by the state. Businesses such as construction or repair can start as well, and such jobs and ventures such as delivery or mail could be created. Our counter-economy is beginning to form, and as more trades enter into the market, as more people start selling the products with our exchange medium, the ideas behind can begin to spread, as such an economy makes itself known.
As it grows, we will need a venue or some kind of opportunity to promote it. In order to spread the ideas of this new dual-power economy, the merits must be made prominent to all.
And what better way to do that, than with a trade faire?
(This article is the fourth in a series of articles, building upon the theory of a possible system of mutualism utilizing cryptocurrencies. The previous article may be found here, and the next article in the series shall be linked here when published. Comments and criticism are wholly welcome.)
- Examples of such shows include Stoner Cats, The Red Ape Family, and Super Doge, and video games such as Axie Infinity have been made, as well as numerous other projects announced. That is not to say they are of good quality, merely that they do exist and are funded via NFTs.
- While the video is too long for its own good, examples of such artists are shown in Uniquenameosaurus’ essay defending NFTs.
- The YouTuber Coffeezilla has made numerous videos on NFT scams, as well as other scams and schemes in the crypto sphere. The other criticisms of the matter can be found neatly presented in Folding Ideas’ video essay on NFTs.
