Good as gold
[Dave Birch] Suppose that one of the longer-term results of the current economic crisis is that people begin to lose faith in government money (ie, national fiat currency) and start to search for alternatives. Then what (and who) will be best placed to provide the alternative? What I mean by this is that if a combination of technological advance and dissatisfaction with economic arrangement reinforce each other, then we may find ourselves not only replacing the medium of exchange (ie, notes and coins) but also the store of value that it animates (ie, Sterling). One of the principal categories of alternative currency, that has been attracting a lot of attention recently, is local currency. I’ve offer looked at the subject of local currencies and had the general opinion that there is something going on there that will at some point be interesting, but it’s been difficult to identify any specific areas where they can intersect with the payments mainstream.
