Let alone the debatable argument of whether a city is legally being allowed or going to issue its own cryptocurrency (in other words, ‘print’ and circulate its own money in the digital form) as we going through the three phases of cryptocurrency, keep in mind that what we have now is truly borderless, programmable money backed by immutable computer systems based on pure logic & mathematics.

Good news is, we do have cities issuing their own cryptocurrency. For instance, the Belfast Coin – the fourth in the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities project. In contrast to Colu’s coins in London, Liverpool and Israel, Belfast Coin will contain an incentive element, rewarding participants for performing tasks such as civic volunteering.

City Currency

As such, City Currency – a city-wide digital currency – can be used to motivate residents towards impactful positive behaviors, including increased local spending, healthy living, recycling, civic activity and beyond. Stated by Dan Kosky in his article:

“City Currency provides a rewards mechanism, which follows a similar economic logic to frequent-flier miles programs. However, unlike these programs, it promotes city interests, according to their specific needs. The incentives offered through City Currency can be tailored and purpose-built to meet the particular needs of each city. It allows cities to engage residents, local businesses and institutions through their everyday transactions, empowering them to achieve specific goals.”

The experience in drafting the Blueprint for The Development of SDG Progress Monitoring System for Department of Statistics Malaysia was a great one as I worked along with great people from both the government agency and the technical team. The key concept planted in the blueprint is that data is the new oil. It is possible to bring that economic value out of vast data we have today in a better connected world, as we reach out to the edges of the network through better technologies.

Rewarding citizens for good behaviors and contributive actions to solving global issues is not an isolated move nor something new. Besides Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities project, the United Nation, through its Climate Neutral Now initiative is working with W-Foundation, a global relief and conservation organization to promote sustainability and climate action through a gamified mobile social network application. Completion of the missions on the app generate “mission points”, which are used to competitively rank the users on a monthly basis. As an incentive to encourage enthusiastic participation and voluntary generation of useful greenhouse gas emissions reduction data, the top 20% are rewarded each month with WGP (W Green Pay), a blockchain currency.

Exerpt from the Blockchain Insider book project, Chapter 3: Smart Money.

Completed Chapters:
Chapter 1: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Money
Chapter 2: The Name of The Game

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