http://www.dailywealth.com/136/the-only-sure-thing-we-know-about-gold-and-the-u-s-dollar

"With the U.S. unable to eliminate its trade deficit, Nixon was faced with the stark reality of another dollar devaluation. He opted instead to close the gold window on August 15, 1971, ending dollar-for-gold convertibility. The dollar was suddenly off the gold standard, and half of U.S. gold holdings had disappeared. The greenback began to "float," meaning it wasn't tied to any standard and could be printed at will.  So how's it done since then?"

http://www.artbrock.com/

Found Art Brock behind this.  Quite the interesting guy.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-post-office-banking-20160102-story.html

"We can have our Postal Service provide modest banking to low-income people where they can cash their checks and they can do banking,' Sanders said. "I think it will help the post office and it will help millions of low-income people.'"

Or...you could just switch to a decentralized currency and start your own bank.  #duh

Here, here.  $1 BTC would be fine as long as trade volume multiplied by 10x to back it up.  The price point is sensationalist static; consumer transaction (on/off chain) volume is the key success/adoption metric - speculative investment notwithstanding the price point (degree of effort people are willing to put out to get a unit) will always adjust to reflect the currency's real-world use.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/08/average-life-expectancy-for-fiat.html

"According to a study of 775 fiat currencies by DollarDaze.org, there is no historical precedence for a fiat currency that has succeeded in holding its value. Twenty percent failed through hyperinflation, 21% were destroyed by war, 12% destroyed by independence, 24% were monetarily reformed, and 23% are still in circulation approaching one of the other outcomes."

"The average life expectancy for a fiat currency is 27 years, with the shortest life span being one month. Founded in 1694, the British pound Sterling is the oldest fiat currency in existence. At a ripe old age of 317 years it must be considered a highly successful fiat currency. However, success is relative. The British pound was defined as 12 ounces of silver, so it's worth less than 1/200 or 0.5% of its original value. In other words, the most successful long standing currency in existence has lost 99.5% of its value."

"Given the undeniable track record of currencies, it is clear that on a long enough timeline the survival rate of all fiat currencies drops to zero."

This is so interesting; almost feels like a crystal ball.   

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/how-to-start-your-own-private-currency/73327/

"Architects of private currencies face a chicken-egg challenge. To make a new currency popular among users, you have to sign up retailers. To make it popular among retailers, you have to sign up users."

"The most interesting currency facing this existential crisis is BitCoin, a computer-generated currency that is famously traded among a couple hundred computer geeks and merchants. 'The only thing valuable about BitCoin is that there are other nerdy internet denizens that will accept it for payment for things,' Blanchard said."

"BitCoin is backed by neither metals nor man-hours, yet each coin is worth nearly a dollar due to demand for the scarce BitCoins that have been released among the network of users. BitCoin is currently legal and active. But some worry it could face a fate like E-Gold, the bullion-backed online currency that quickly became a favorite of global crooks and money launderers. Its founder was sentenced to house arrest."

This was four years ago; I'm wondering what 'long enough' is for any currency to be legitimized for the masses.

http://newcurrencyfrontiers.com/ is the site; here's the excerpt:

"Free Speech laws are designed to protect public discourse and dialogue. They create a safe space for a sort of "idea commons." However, there are no such protections for a "value commons"  where communities and people can choose what they value and how to measure its value."

"Instead, we are accustomed to operating inside a "value system monopoly" with nationalized monetary currencies which only measure relative scarcity for commercial exchanges. This one pattern of thinking has become so ingrained in our minds that it's difficult to grasp the power of different ways of valuing and measuring things. We fail to notice the shortcomings of hard-wiring value to scarcity. For example, many things vital to our existence such as nutritional food, responsible parenting, supportive relationships, functional communities, breathable air, drinkable water, or fertile soil are not valuable until they become scarce.  Consider for a moment how poorly money represents the value of such things."

"We have laws to protect freedom of speech and provide a safe space for the idea commons, but what creates the space for a value commons?"

Starting in US, and we're striving to keep the fees UNDER 5%.  See you in Europe! 

"This is great news! Anything that brings people away from the old world and into the new, at such a mainstream, retail level can only be good news for changemakers everywhere!"
 COLIN TURNER - THE FREE WORLD CHARTER

The point of BuyAnyCoin's gift card or 'voucher' model is to promote easy, instantaneous access to cryptocurrency.  It's specifically a way to buy into crypto, not to convert out of it (Gyft).  Think LocalBTC without the phone calls or strangers - a would-be customer just heads to the gas station and grabs a card like they would a soft drink.  Once they redeem the card in their online account (via scratch-off code) they can convert into BTC, LTC, DOGE, NXT, hold it, withdraw it, etc.  The idea is to make acquisition simple and the entire concept familiar to the masses, bypassing all the unorthodoxy currently hampering widespread adoption.

You may have heard of CoinPlug

As another example of how BuyAnyCoin is bringing digital currency to the masses, check out this fun project!  We're volunteering our time and resources to help spread awareness and adoption of digital currency using one of the world's hottest games, Microsoft's Minecraft!  With a custom-built server 'world' that has taken two years to set up, combined with a unique rewards system that has the potential to introduce millions of fans to the future of payment systems, BuyAnyCoin is at the forefront of creative thinking when it comes to changing the world of finance!

We'll be adding updates about the crowdfund and the very new minecraft server with $300 worth of cryptocurrency rewards redeemable at www.buyanycoin.com!  For now, here's a shout out to Joao Ogando, Clara Saenz, Daniel Kranich, and Eric Taylor for contributing to our campaign!

Our system is simple, but also readily familiar to the masses.  The team here at BuyAnyCoin has already laid the groundwork for our POS integration, secure acquisition portal, compliance and legal framework, card design and distribution, and merchant partnerships!  We're looking for

We'd love to hear from you!

www.buyanycoin.com
team@buyanycoin.com
Skype: buyanycoin
twitter: @buyanycoin

1577 C Street
Unit #101
Anchorage, Alaska 99501

QUOTE:



"My name is Pétur Árnason and I'm one of the founders of the Auroracoin foundation and am a part of the new dev team.

I want to state this now so we are all clear on this.

We are not trying to hype the coin nor get any of you here to buy the coin. We are taking over this project because we believe in it's potential here in Iceland and we will be working towards that goal not to get a few traders on BCT to buy a few coins. So I think I can't make it more plan than this. Do not buy the coin if you are not from Iceland. If you are however and you have your doubt's then you can send me a PM here or at auroraspjall.is and I would be more than willing to meet you face to face to discuss what we are doing here and why.

If you are however interested in this project and it's potential, then feel free to join us in this experiment and help us get this coin adopted by the Icelandic public. We are a determined group that fully understand that this project will take some years of dedication before it can be called a success and all of us are ready to take on that work.

If you are asking why then it's because of Auroracoins huge distribution in Iceland. I think most here don't realise what that means. This coin has more chance of getting public adoption in the next years than any coin around, including Bitcoin. That is for two reasons and for those who are interested, I'll explain.

First is Iceland.
Iceland has all the perfect conditions to adopt a cryptocurrency.
We had a crash here in 2008 that is the result of the flawed monetary system we have today and people here are unhappy with this system and are still angry at the system.
People here know that the króna is a zombie currency that has been inflated many times beyond it's capacity and they know it will fail again.
Iceland has capital control in place which greatly limits the foreign currency that the public can get.
We have a very high rate of technology adoption in Iceland and one of the highest Internet usage per capita in the world.

The second being the success of the first airdrop stage.
There were claims for over 10% of the nation and there are still over 20.000 of these that are still holding their original claims. No matter how you put it the exposure Auroracoin got in Iceland at that time is unparallelled anywhere in the world. In no other country in the world does as high percentage of the public been exposed to a cryptocurrency and nowhere else do more people own a cryptocurrency. The amount of claims does not even come close to showing the the amount of exposure the coin got here at this time. This is what makes Auroracoin special and is far more valuable than any market cap can tell you.

What this all means is that Iceland is the perfect environment to get people to adopt a cryptocurrency. If we succeed in that all of the crypto community will benefit from it as Auroracoin would hit all the possible obstacles on the way, be it social, legal or technical. It would demonstrate all the benefits and disadvantage of cryptocurrency adoption which other coins can learn from. Auroracoins adoption in Iceland would be a small scale simulation of how adoption would likely play out in larger economy's and it would benefit our crypto community as a whole.

This is why we dedicate ourselves to this project. Our goal is general adoption of cryptocurrencies in general, not just Auroracoins.

So just to be clear on this. If you are not from Iceland, do not buy the coin. There is a plethora of other coins out there much better for general trading."

I love this.