Matters Pizza Day｜The irresponsible fantasy about cryptocurrency

Community and Community Token

The currency circle has fallen sharply recently.

I became an Appreciated Citizen in April when LikeCoin was around $0.012 and now is $0.00367. Measured in U.S. dollars, LikeCoin has lost more than two-thirds of its market value.

However, I bought LikeCoin not to wait for it to appreciate in value and make a fortune, but to exchange gifts with the citizens in Matt City, so I don’t think this price change has much impact on me. If I insist on saying yes, I will feel that it is a good time to buy more LikeCoins and save them, and then send them out slowly in the future.

At this point in time when the currency value plummeted, I would like to ask you a question:

If you got 100 $Likes in praise last month, do you deserve 300 $Likes for writing hard as the currency price plummets this month?

My answer was: "No."

Because in Matt City, everyone's exchanges are not calculated in US dollars. I think in the small circle of Matt City, everyone does what they can to reward each other. $Like doesn't matter how much, it's a matter of heart. Like many authors who don't have the heart to learn the trading method of cryptocurrency, I don't think it is necessary to force it. Clap your hands too.

Some people in Matt City just watch and don't clap their hands, it's really not interesting - spit out: It's not that I like it no matter how badly written, but a friend always tells me offline where I watched. This article, what are your thoughts, but have never clapped my hands! ! My dear, I won't name names, if you see this, I'm talking about you!

Although people are inevitably shy or have no habit of liking, I can understand, but in the final analysis, it depends on whether you consider yourself a member of Matt City, and whether you want to communicate with other citizens here. I'm based in Matt, rather than writing in places like Medium, and it's the feeling of the neighbors in the city that counts. Whether it is "like" or "reward", this action establishes a relationship with each other. It's as if Ah Hua upstairs gave me two eggs today, and tomorrow I will give Ah Ling next door a lunch box. The day after tomorrow Ah Ling will go to Ah Ming's house to help fix the toilet... you pay it forward. I think that 's how you come and go, give each other a little bit, and owe a little bit to each other, and that's how you form a community.

In Matt City, sometimes people give me more, and I inadvertently give to others more generously; and vice versa. When we appreciate others, we may have a vague horizontal comparison of value. We see how much others have rewarded, what is our reward record, and how much spare money we have in hand, so as to decide how much to give. This kind of mentality is the same as the relationship between neighbors in a building.

That is to say, in my experience, the value judgments in the city of Matt are almost irrelevant to the value judgments of my daily life. Matter City's value measurement exists independently within the Matter City community. Only when I want to appreciate someone, don't have enough $Likes in hand, and need to go to the exchange to buy it, will it be relevant to my daily accounts. (If you live in Taiwan, it seems that you can use $Like to buy everyday items! For details, see #slothLikeCoin Shopping Conference 😂)

Community Token and Fiat Currency

I finished reading " Blockchain Sociology " by Mr. Gao Zhuangjian this week and benefited a lot. There is one point of view that I think can be discussed further.

He believes that behind the fiat currency represents a sovereign country, backed by the military. The country is divided according to the land boundary, which reflects the physical value of clothing, food, housing and transportation. The community token measures the value created by the individual to the community - it reflects the value that is not covered by the upper half of Maslow's demand pyramid and fiat currency. The dotted line in the image below separates the usage scenarios of fiat and cryptocurrencies, reassuring those who worry that cryptocurrencies will weaken national sovereignty.

As a book that is sufficiently avant-garde, it is necessary to try to convince those who are skeptical of the blockchain, so that the expression of distinguishing legal currency and cryptocurrency is correct and safe. But when we look deeper into it, should the dotted line above really exist?

First of all, the legal currency in a good society can definitely meet the needs of Maslow's upper class. For example, an event organizer invites you to be a sharing guest, not only paying you, but also caring for you to book air tickets and hotels. Does this satisfy your need to be respected? For another example, if you donate money to an NGO you recognize, or help poor students, does it meet the needs of self-realization?

Secondly, most of the community tokens in the physical society are rooted in Maslow’s underlying needs, such as shopping coupons, food stamps, gift cards, credit card points, etc. The community token on the blockchain has not been used in the physical world, but it is only because there are many technical problems to be solved and the public's concept of currency to be changed.

So, are there any essential differences between a community with a common philosophy and a country with a consensus on values?

Are there any essential differences between a negotiable securities recognized by a community and a currency recognized by a national government?

In theory they are indistinguishable.

The only difference is practical: we usually have the freedom to choose to join or leave a community, but not the freedom to easily join or leave a country. As long as we, as biological organisms, must exist on the basis of "nationality", we can only accept the definition of currency in our country, and using cryptocurrencies is only a small rebellion we can do.

Tokens, Currency and Freedom

Let me show you the "token" I used when I was a child: it records its application scope (organization name) and its corresponding value to the real thing (1 kilogram of rice 😅).

If you lived in a Chinese government agency before the 1990s, you should have seen many similar bills. In the past, a large part of my parents' salary was paid in the form of various meal tickets, and they earned very little in RMB. When I was a child, I always carried a handful of meal tickets and vegetable tickets, and went to the cafeteria of the unit to make meals. The supporting tickets also include water tickets and bathhouse tickets...🤣 At that time, a government agency was a proper small community, and all kinds of tickets were issued by themselves for internal use only.

Before the reform and opening up, these tickets were difficult to convert into RMB. They actually play a role in restricting personal freedom. You work in this unit and receive the "pass" of this unit in exchange for food, clothing, housing and transportation. If you leave the unit, your food, clothing, housing and transportation will not be guaranteed; if you really need to go to work outside your own unit, you must ask the unit leader to open a "letter of introduction".

Although the reform and opening up has gradually abolished the certificates issued by these units and organs, and made the renminbi a domestic currency in circulation, this has naturally greatly improved the freedom of Chinese people to move within the country and choose their own occupations. No matter how hard life is, as long as you can save some money, you have more options.

Why have money and business activities been particularly uncomfortable for the ruling class since feudal times? The ruling class will naturally say that money corrupts the soul and corrupts morals, but the most fundamental point is that money makes people free . A tenant farmer, if it is stipulated that he can only pay taxes on the output of agriculture, he can only be imprisoned on the land to engage in agricultural production. However, once he is allowed to pay the tax in money, he can do other things to complete the tax. This is naturally outrageous to the hierarchical structure of feudal society. Therefore, the rulers of feudal society never valued money so much, they valued tribute and obedience.

Therefore, even if the renminbi is circulated in the country, the purchase of foreign exchange by the renminbi has always been restricted, which means that going abroad and doing foreign trade are regulated. During the most stringent foreign exchange control period, in the 1970s, the exchange rate of the RMB against the U.S. dollar was as high as 1.5. It seemed very cool, but ordinary people had no way to buy U.S. dollars, because at that time, we were engaged in class struggle in our country and did not want to earn foreign exchange. 

This video of Mr. Sun's analysis of the trend of RMB is very inspiring for me to think about the meaning of cryptocurrency, exchange rate and currency. Looking at the exchange rate changes since the founding of the People's Republic of China for decades, the appreciation of the renminbi has always been accompanied by isolation and foreign exchange restrictions, and when it depreciated the most, the 1990s was a period when the country was wide open and foreign trade was booming.

Seeing this clearly, then the Russian ruble has recently appreciated all the way, even surpassing the exchange rate before the war, and then you will understand what is going on.

The future of cryptocurrency

The reason why in this rhapsody about cryptocurrency, I came to a change of tone about fiat is because I really don’t think that the various market representations of cryptocurrency are different from fiat. If French currency refers to a currency endorsed by a sovereign state, then since legal currency can be gold coins, paper money, and of course cryptocurrency.

Semantically speaking, fiat currency does not correspond to a cryptocurrency, but a spontaneous token issued by a civil society. Although most of the time we will think that fiat currency is more useful than meal tickets, but when government functions are out of control and prices are soaring every day, you should be grateful for this meal ticket that the community self-help will send you, promising to exchange one kilogram of rice .

Conversely, the corresponding cryptocurrency is not legal currency, but gold coins and banknotes. The physical properties of these carriers determine their advantages and limitations when they are used for circulation or stored value.

Currency, no matter what its carrier is, it ultimately represents the value exchange relationship between people.

Internally, it embodies the community consensus on using the coin (whether you actively choose or passively accept it)

Externally, it reflects the comprehensive strength of this group in the eyes of the surrounding groups.

In the past, holding multiple currencies was something that only international superstars could do.

The emergence of cryptocurrency, the greatest significance is that it allows people who associate freely to easily issue credible certificates, and also allows us to hold a variety of different currencies at the same time, thus decentralizing our understanding of a single currency, especially the laws of the country to which we belong. Coin dependency.

Imagine a day in the future when all currencies can be freely exchanged—

Then I would consider the following questions to decide what currency to hold:

• how many people use
• what to buy
• How is it exchanged with other currencies or physical objects, and whether the exchange rate is stable

Just like financial planners will suggest that you distribute your wealth into different asset forms such as real estate, cash, securities, etc., maybe we will have such a comprehensive consideration when holding coins in the future.

Pizza, rice, noodles, what do you want?

Why was it such a big deal 12 years ago that two software engineer geeks in the US exchanged Bitcoin for pizza?

Because... no matter how digital technology develops, people are iron rice or steel...

Going back to the beginning of the article, taking $Like as an example, there is a vague consensus on how much we appreciate each other in Matt. But how much $Like can be exchanged for a kilo of rice?

Because all the citizens of Matt City have to eat (you should also eat noodles if you don’t eat), this problem cannot be avoided.

If $Like lost two-thirds of its value against the dollar, but $Like did not depreciate against rice, would we still panic and be disappointed? Or, once I was very gluttonous, I needed to eat three kilograms of rice a day, and now I have regained my senses, and one kilogram of rice a day is enough, so even if $Like loses two-thirds of the value of rice, am I still without it? loss?

This year, Europe's granary, Ukraine, has been severely poisoned, fearing famine; China restricts farming and logistics on the basis of clearing zero... If we are unfortunately faced with food shortages, then even if $Like remains stable against the US dollar, I am afraid that the price of rice will rise... In life Fortunately, it is so uncertain.

Having said so much about personal needs and currency, I suddenly remembered a proverb from a primitive tribe:

My deposit is in my brother's belly.

They lived a hunter-gatherer life, and as much as they got to eat, they came back and distributed it to everyone in the tribe to eat. There was no granary or freezer. The trust mechanism in this is that when I get sick, or just because of bad luck, I can't get food, and the brothers in the tribe will take care of me.

Such a simple life may be difficult to achieve today. But I always feel that in the future world where multiple currencies coexist, there is no regime interference, and currency exchange is free, we may be better able to resist natural and man-made disasters.

Regarding the use of cryptocurrencies, my experience and imagination are still very limited. Today, I read the joy, dilemma and longing of LikeCoin shopping written by @sloth’s life , so inspiring! Suddenly I have some inspiration, and I plan to go to Matt's Market in a few days to play!