In response to the gold bugs which would like money to be backed by gold… Consider fractionlised Land trusts potentially valued at over $200 trillion as a better asset base than gold bullion hidden in inaccessible vaults with questionable chemistry valued at $4 trillion.
Could you explain how global money valued at $100 trillion could be backed by anything? What process would allow $100 trillion of money certificates to be backed by marketable assets? Would governments need to gradually purchase their share of $100 trillion worth of some asset or basket of assets, develop a globally recognised audit and certificate system? Would these asset based new digital currencies need to be redeemable for marketable asset certificates – we could cash in & out of these new currencies and trade the asset certificates in open markets. Governments would also have to continually purchase from these open & speculative markets?
Would gold be better or worse than land titles? Land titles are valued at more than double all of global money, over $200 trillion. Land is widely owned and could be taxable over many years. Every land title could become a standardised and regulated trust, with its shares a fractional unit, say 10,000 units standard. These Land trusts could be gradually co-owned by governments through a yearly land ownership levy, say 2% a year. These land trusts shares owned by governments could be immediately or continue to leased to back to the market, as a silent party to market leases, with the income from these leased lands used to purchase more shares of more land trusts. These government owned shares would be strategically widely and evenly distributed to be a background to the market.
Since access to affordable land is an infrastructure requirement for an equitable society, for a sustainable and fair economy, governments could lease their share portion of the land trusts, at below market rates (perhaps as tax rebates), to offset the additional demand created from ongoing government purchases and holdings (not selling).
Land could be easily fractionalised, audited and regulated, much more transparently, by cross referencing land title registries, using satellite mapping, combined with on ground surveys and existing markets, than the questionable chemical composition of stores of gold hidden in inaccessible vaults, estimated to be valued at less than a tenth of global money. Actually, audited Gold bullion is estimated to be valued at around $4 trillion.
Using public infrastructure blockchain, private ownership of highly transparent land trust share units could be traded as a form of legally recognised transferable value. Since Land Trust shares / units are of fairly stable value and franctionalised to say 10,000 units, these units could be treated as more like currency than securities or assets. For example a $1 million Land Trust would have $100 units – based on the 10,000 unit standard.
Each governments land share portfolio could be held in a central or syndicated (regionally branched) reserve which could form the basis of issuing a new national or regional digital currency unit, a share of the redeemable asset reserve. Initially the unit value would be issued at the same value as the government currency unit. The new Digital currency unit backed by redeemable registered land title shares would be purchased with old money, but gradually old money would lose its relative value, as land is usually productive through use or lease.
The gradual loss of value of old money versus new money would cause the conversion process to speed up. Governments accepting old money could use it to purchase more land share units. Eventually old money would be retired. At some point in this transition domestically traded goods and service would switch their price units to new digital currency – while land will be the first in the early stages, with the land ownership levy quickly following.
High level roles of a land backed monetary policy – sufficient currency supply could be combined with stabilising land value – assuring sufficient affordable access to land as an essential economic policy. While Tax reform could shift away from taxing income and regular trade to taxing speculative trade and the concentration of asset ownership.
Stable tokens redeemable to a basket of Fairly Stable Assets
Long before governments debate and legislate ideas like these, the crypto economy could reconsider a default base unit of stable value tokens. A shift of measuring stability by comparison, away from national currencies, either as a pegging or by collateral backing, to tokenised collateral value of fairly stable reserves of unit shares of highly liquid essential assets.
Two Tokens for Productive Assets: Shares & Credits
Combining ideas from Basis and Bancor protocols.
A Land Trust (productive asset) capitalised by unit shares, to be purchased through a liquidity pool paired with Asset Tenancy credits. The tenancy credits to be purchased through a liquidity pool paired with stable currencies. The liquidity pools could use price stabilisation through demand pricing for the conversion fees.
Productive Asset shares could receive dividends in tenancy credits. Dividends as well as token inflation, budgets, executive appointments, to be decided through quadratic voting of share and tenancy credit holdings. Aim for multi-stakeholder model (see FairShares).
Ideas like these will influence research and development in the measurement of value stability and the formula for the allocation of collateral in the redeemable and liquid reserve serving the BASIS of Co-here local tokens.