Towards multivalent currencies, bioregional monetary stewardship and a distributed global reserve currency

In this third blog of a 4-part series we are sharing a speculative future scenario based around a network of distributed bioregional banks. The blog series is centred on the following enquiries and this reflection aims to address question three.

1. What are the issues that make money (and our dominant monetary systems) so problematic? (Please see Blog 1)
2. Can we use design principles to help us imagine desirable future scenarios? (Please see Blog 2)
3. What could a desirable future scenario actually look like?
4. What can we start building and testing now to begin scaffolding a parallel system? (Please see Blog 4)

Part 3 (of 4): Imagining the distributed, bioregional banks of the future

In the previous two blogs we have been exploring monetary challenges and proposing some design principles that could underpin a response. In this post we are shifting to a more creative and imaginative space. The future is unlikely to unfold in a form that we can cognitively envision. If we accept that position then it might feel pointless to engage with imaginative scenarios or foresight exercises. On the other hand, it can be interesting to form a series of working hypotheses (or perhaps stories of change) that we can use as testing grounds for our current thinking. From there, we hope to move to a space of creative vulnerability where we dare to bring some of those thought experiments to life. It is highly likely that some of the ideas presented below won’t work. It is also likely that we will learn something important from each iteration, as we continually loop between what we can understand now and the edges of our potential.

This speculative proposition is centred on the idea of a series of distributed, bioregional banks. However, these next generation institutions will bear little resemblance to our current conception of a bank. In essence they will be stewardship interfaces that exist in service of the regenerative potential of their base region. When linked together via contextually respectful exchange rates they will realign our economic systems in service of planetary vitality. Ultimately the aspiration would be to create a new global reserve currency which itself is regenerative and decolonised by design.

What if a distributed bioregional bank actually existed?

It’s easy to find fault with our current banking system but what would we propose as an alternative? What would these distributed institutions actually do? Who would be involved and in what capacity? As a starting point to open this conversation up, we have been thinking about three stewardship functions that could be part of the remit of these next generation banks. We are framing these ideas as a story that is unfolding to try and illustrate how it might feel to interact with these future banks.

Image: Dark Matter Labs¹

1. Multivalent currencies

The future banks will be part of a vibrant ecosystem of decentralised multivalent currencies. The issuance and use of these diverse, infinite and resource-backed tokens will build a dynamic understanding of the integrity of the ecosystem as a whole. The key functions of the tokens will be fourfold:

• To demonstrate invisible or overlooked value flows;
• To gather sensory inputs from different elements of the ecosystem;
• To account for individual and collective contributions to the ecosystem’s health;
• To form the basis for the overall RegenCoin for the bioregion.

To illustrate how this might work we can use the example of a river printing its own solidarity tokens. People will receive river tokens in recognition of acts of care provided to the river. This might take the form of collecting rubbish from the river banks, introducing children to the joy of wild swimming or reducing the level of pesticides flowing into the water. Initially the system might be overseen by human guardians who vouch for such actions and communicate them to the Bank. As technologies are refined for this new way of living, a time will come where the river will be able to issue and destroy its own tokens via multi-sensory inputs.

The motivations for people to value the river tokens will be diverse. In the early days, it might be linked to respect and peer approval. Later, the tokens might become part of a blended measure of contribution that forms the overall currency for the region.

2. Contextually respectful exchange

The bank will provide a monetary stewardship function that will restrict the conversion of base assets into convertible tokens so that they align with the regenerative rhythms of the bioregion. For example:

• The Bank could regulate the sales of finite elements both within and outside of the bioregion.
• The Bank could restrict the issuance of new debt to align with the underlying regenerative health of the region. Different types of debt could be issued that could only be used to buy or invest into specific classes of living agents (‘assets’ in today’s terminology). For example, on aggregate the bank would only issue debt for lumber processing activities that were forecast to be at a regenerative level for the region’s forests over the term of the loan.
• The bank could designate taxes to be paid in a mix of specified tokens. This mix could be rebalanced periodically to incentivise the behaviours which are optimal for the fluid health of the ecosystem.

3. Probabilistic, participatory governance models

The Bank’s governance systems will be based on Bayesian inference models. This is a form of dynamic statistical modelling that allows an initial set of assumptions to continually update depending on the information it receives. Critically, the output will be a blended result combining automatic sensory data inputs with the emotional values of the living community. For example, if a community upregulates the importance of river health then the overall value of the RegenCoin would fall if other activities were negatively impacting it.

These future bank activities can feel a bit flat and detached without a contextual grounding. One idea to bring them to life is to imagine how they could play out under different scenarios. We are suggesting two examples below and would be very curious to hear other ideas or interpretations:

• A house owner gifts their property back to nature: in this example a resident of the Bioregion decides that the area where their house has been built should be re-wilded in the interests of the bioregion’s health. When the resident nullifies their previous ownership rights, it will trigger a series of sensory credits to their RegenWallet. The regenerative generosity of the act will be upregulated by human and more-than-human voices. The result will be an amount of newly created RegenCoin being available to build a house in a more sensitive location.
• A company tries to game the system to create rights over carbon credits: in this more negative example, we can imagine that a profit seeking company might want to manipulate the system for private gains. Their strategy might be to plant a dense area of trees to maximise their carbon credibility. However, as the sensory inputs are invisible, they would not know how their choice of tree species or location would be valued by the soil, pollinators or the trees themselves. In seeking to generate profits rather than regenerative potential they might in fact generate a negative return.

Sitting in front of a computer in 2024, the scenario that we have outlined above might seem far fetched. If you take a deep breath, soften your gaze and meditate for a second on the extraordinary, complex beauty of life, perhaps it feels a little less fanciful. So much of the living world is beyond our cognitive understanding but entirely open to our sensory perception. To us this feels like both an invitation and a call to action. We already have the technological power of gods and we can choose to direct it in service of life. Grounding this aspiration in a practical context is the next important step in this journey. In our final blog we will therefore begin exploring tangible elements of the scenario that we can start to build and test now.

We are incredibly heartened and grateful for all the messages that we have received so far in response to these blogs. We are still reading through some of the material and will aim to incorporate (and credit) these generous contributions wherever possible. One suggestion is to convene some online studios where we can begin sharing and exploring ideas — we are fully open to others.

This blog was written by Emily Harris (emily@darkmatterlabs.org). The visual design was developed by Sofia Valentini (sofia@darkmatterlabs.org) and Madelyn Capozzi (maddy@darkmatterlabs.org).

The initiative sits at the intersection between Dark Matter’s Next Economics LAB and the Radical Civics portfolio.

References:

1. This scenario was partly inspired by some thoughts shared by Gregory Landua on episode 63 of the Planetary Regeneration Podcast.