now of money

Almost all the history of community/complementary currency (cc) development has been singularly monocultural - one group of account holders transacting in accordance with one agreement structure, generally using one recording procedure.  Systems have operated in isolation from others, even when geographically or otherwise close to others of a similar or even identical nature.  This is a severe limitation, and in fundamental contradiction of the opportunities inherent in virtual money systems - you can have any virtual currency, you can have many.  And so we will.

An open money (or cc) service provider (ccsp) gives users access to many currencies.  Users can create their own systems on their own terms, as easily as they can start an email list on google or yahoo.   This site offers a pre-release exploration of this facility.

However, any singular instance of open money software will still be limited by scale issues.  A full open money context requires a distributed network of servers and clients, which in turn require inter-server protocols for data exchange, and common procedures across all servers for the management of different system classes - units of measure, disclosure levels, user fees (if any), restrictions on trading for example.  

For ease of use and rapid proliferation the namespace architecture for naming user accounts and currency systems should be simple. And further, for optimal viral propagation of the network, the stewardship and administration of namespaces,  currencies and accounts must be easily delegated.

First there are identities - people and organisations, generally  real but also possibly virtual.

All they need have in common is an interest in virtual money and its application in real and virtual worlds.   

Registered identities can name accounts for recording transfers in community currencies (cc) in open money domains.

Each registered identity can have one or several trading accounts.

Trading accounts are grouped in domains and subdomains, which will generally be communities of place or communities of interest.  

Initially, on the demonstration server, each registered profile identity has permissions to create account, cc and namespace in the parent ".x" namespace.

Registrants will also be  apply for access to geographic domains of the form
"local.region.country-code"

The registered identities can log into the open money server and use their trading accounts to record transactions in a community currency (cc).

Many cc are better than one.  Each grouping of users is a different community of interaction, and most users will eventually participate in several.

All together now - but distinct.    

 

There are two patterns - trading accounts grouped in domains of place or interest - who we are, and trading accounts grouped by their interactions - what we do.

You can try this software as a user, anonymous or otherwise.   You can register (several times if you like) open one or many trading accounts in namespaces accepting new users.  With these trading accounts you can join community currencies (cc) open to new accounts, and create your own cc systems.   

If you want to explore more of the possibilities, open your own namespace in .x, or apply to a steward of an existing (parent) domain to steward a (child) sub-domain.  And so on, recursively.