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Game On!

September 7, 2016

This is it folks……….September 22nd will be the official opening of ‘De Florijn’……..

We’ll come together in Utrecht for a small party, and even though I realize most reading this will be too far away to accept the invitation, I want all of you to know you’d be most welcome to partake in the celebrations.

At last! It has proven a thorny path to get it all programmed, but it’s here now!

Sure, in the years ahead, we’ll keep developing, but this is our version 1.0, suitable for ‘production’. Now we can at last start the business of building a viable network of businesses and consumers paying with ‘De Florijn’.

Honestly, I have difficulty believing it myself, but this is my dream of ‘the future of money’. De Florijn, and the Talent architecture upon which it is based, has got it all:
– Fully interest-free with zero cost (!!) credit
– Convertibility to Euro
– Always sufficiently available
– Impervious to foreseeable international financial shocks
– Impervious to speculation and ‘making money with money’
– Providing much needed liquidity where it matters: on Main Street
– Taking only one minute for individuals, and a few minutes for businesses to open an account
– Ultra low cost: free for individuals, only F 10,- per month for businesses
– Seamless payment with a smartphone or even older mobile
– Ready for paper money (although we will be offering that at a later stage)

Priorities
Our first priority now is to build a network of paying businesses that allow us to operate professionally. Already there are about 250 accounts, 30 businesses and 220 private individuals/consumers.

We have a solid marketing plan, based on good contacts with the Alternative Media in the Netherlands (who reach hundreds of thousands of people) and resellers, who we offer good compensation for every business they connect to the network. We hope to activate a lot of people in this way.

Our second goal is to work with people everywhere who want to open up high powered alternative currencies to support their own communities and countries, based on the Talent architecture.

Surely, this is not for everyone. But if Usury is the problem, than obviously lending interest-free is the solution.

A fundraiser
This is always the challenge when embarking on basically any product that requires wider acceptance to gain usability and effectiveness: how to survive until you are breaking even?!

Raising funds for this project has proven an uphill struggle from the beginning. Alternative currencies are both esoteric and clearly anti-establishment in nature. Hardly very attractive to State, Banker, or Venture Capitalist types.

So we, me and my colleagues, are turning to you. We need your help. This project needs and deserves wide(r) support. Monetary reform cannot be left to a handful of people, and it cannot be achieved overnight. At least those who understand the issues need to be involved, or it will never work. A lot of money and years of research and development has gone into it already. M., the man who has programmed everything, has worked with me since 2012 and has spent hundreds of hours on different versions of the system.

We are looking to raise some money to help us get through the first year of operation. We are hoping to raise at least ten thousand dollars. This money will go to operational expenses (travel, telephone, hosting, meetings, marketing materials) and if at all possible subsidizing our cost of living, so we can focus as much as is humanly possible on building the network.

We are looking for donations, but if you would be interested in investing a larger sum of money, that would be great too. We can offer you very reasonable terms. Please contact me at ‘realcurrencies(at)gmail.com.

If you would like to support monetary innovation along the lines as we have been discussing here at Real Currencies, than this is your chance.

Please use the Donate button on the right -> Under the ‘Believers Only’ picture.

Thank you so much.

PS: We’ll keep you posted on further developments!

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33 Comments
  1. Congratulations Anthony! This is truly a historic moment in the EU. You have restored the faith in reform against the banksters that was so cowardly dashed by Syriza. God Bless you and your new bank!

  2. Tony B. permalink

    Good luck, Anthony, a bit of help to follow.
    Tony B.

  3. Ok, but where is the link to the project? Can’t wait to check out.

  4. Hello Anthony,

    Excellent news – well done!

    Unfortunately I will not be able to be at your celebration, but I wish you well.

    I’m looking for almost exactly what you describe as a currency for The Sovereign Nation of Shetland (www.sovereignshetland.com). Could the Florijn be linked to any currency? Fair money is an essential part of our strategy to ‘hollow out’ the existing administration in Shetland by offering a society so attractive that people will not be able to resist joining. Combined with fair justice and fair democracy, it will usher in a world of abundance – which we are already in, except that the abundance has been cornered by a few.

    I’ve set up a small monthly donation for you – not much, but every little helps. It would be good to talk.

    Regards,

    Stuart.

    P.S. Interestingly, Shetland was pawned by King Christian of Denmark to James iii of Scotland in 1469 for 8,000 florijns. It is that little bit of history that enables The Sovereign Nation of Shetland to challenge the Scottish and UK governments on the legitimacy of their authority here.

  5. Congratulations Anthony. The timing is also perfect. Best Wishes.

  6. Art permalink

    Anthony, Congrats! I really hope it takes off. For you, and for all the folks that will benefit. God Bless!

  7. Friendly Feedback permalink

    I know little about this project, but commend it, and offer constructive commentary.

    1. It needs to be open-sourced, like bitcoin. Cryptography is either open-source or untrustworthy, pick one.

    2. Smartphones track, trace, and spy on us. The USA or Five Eyes will designate ‘alternative currency’ a ‘terrorist funding mechanism’ to plant malware. Megacorporate, PRISM-enabled networks are the worst possible. Did you notice how Congress gave American telcos retroactive immunity for crimes on customers? De Florijn needs other payment routes. A plastic card for point-of-sale units would work. Also realize any stand-alone device with computing power could replace smartphones (Raspberry Pi Zero for US$35, USB Armory for US$150, tablets, etc.). Paper is always best.

    3. From a marketing standpoint, I get smartphone popularity. It’s artificial. Smartphones sell far below cost of manufacture and Obama even gives them away. There is a reason. Have your lawyers parse telco terms of service. Phones are legalized spy devices. You cannot buy phones without cameras. That is why Obama subsidizes them. An ‘alternative’ network depending on smartphones is TOO dependent. Go for paper as well. It should be simple to print QR-code or barcode vouchers. Always include the actual legible digits for human input where scanning machinery is not available or incompatible. When the PTB trigger collapse is when we’ll most need currency. Underground news says official operatives are getting satphones as higher-ups say cell service will be shut down on purpose. If De Florijn relies on smartphones, then it will die with the dollar. It will only live beyond that point as paper vouchers not dependent on phones or even electricity.

    • fuzzy permalink

      Maybe not if the smart phones are on a peer-to-peer network, thus don’t go through a central service provider (who can be coerced to do a state’s bidding). Decentralisation is the future, if you want privacy and freedom.

      • credit requires a contract between parties that know each other.

        Anonimity is therefore impossible in a modern money and credit system.

  8. Congratulations Anthony! Great work! We have been thinking along the same lines independently it seems. I’d love to get your input on the following:
    https://github.com/The-Stand-Up-Way/better-money/wiki

    Thanks in advance!

  9. Dark Dirk permalink

    And why consumers should pay with ‘De Florijn’ when they can pay with euro ? Is there a way to earn ‘De Florijn’ without buying it ?

    • Consumers participate for free Dark Dirk, and you make it sound like bad thing!

      Of course the businesses can settle in euro, but the fact that we can sustain our operation fully from income in Florijn (because it is convertible) is a sign of strength, and paying with Florijn will be (much) easier for by far most participants.

  10. Alexandra Hardie permalink

    Greetings from Scotland. I can’t get to this meeting, but congratulations on your achievements, and I do wish you success. Have a good time! Best Wishes, Alexandra

  11. Give me a Bank — a paper Bank,
    The best machine for saving labor,
    For who would toil and sweat himself,
    When there’s a chance to sweat his neighbor.

    Away, now, with your power-looms,
    Revolving Jacks, and spinning Jennies;
    Contrivances for packing wool
    Can’t match the Banks for picking pennies.

    “Ex nihil nihil fit,” was once
    A maxim much in vogue with some;
    But few indeed can now maintain
    That “nothing can from nothing come.”

    For though the ancients could convert
    Their gold to rags, (as we are told,)
    Yet we, in times more civilized
    Can make from rags the best of gold.

    All hail, then, glorious alchemy,
    That can from nothing something make !
    What pity things created thus,
    Their primal form are prone to take.

    So let us have a Bank, my boys !
    A fortune thus we all may win:
    Like lilies of the valley live,
    Who “toil not, neither do they spin!”

  12. Shut up and take my money!!!

  13. gustav permalink

    Can I exchange florijn for bitcoin?

  14. Hi Anthony,
    Like your blog.
    Anthony, I am writing about this contentious subject and I would like to quote you with links back to your blog.
    Before I publish I am seeking your permission, are there conditions ?
    Obviously I will send you a copy of my work.
    Thanks

  15. Reblogged this on MUSO MUSINGS ON FATHERHOOD THEORY AND STUFF The New Grub Street "Taste is like philosophy. It belongs to a very small number of privileged souls … It is unknown in bourgeois families, where one is constantly occupied with the care of one's fortune". Voltaire. Support my writing, see the links. http://www.patreon.com/RogerGLewis Philosoetry, can be bought in Kindle or PDF at Amazon or Lulu http://amzn.to/2cVhNFM http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/RogerGLewis Novels, The Plantsman and The Conquest of Dough, coming soon. and commented:
    Things are headed in the right direction on Monetary credit networks focusing on currency and money as a means of exchange. I am just brushing off some of my own work around Ethereum as a platform and also the other emergent distributed computing networks.
    http://www.ggtrust.com/currency/

  16. So, Anthony, why didn’t you guys go with STRO and Cyclos for the tech? Our team is struggling with the exact same issue now. Cheers.

  17. PRG permalink

    SEPTEMBER 7, 2016.
    Now where are you at ???

  18. Andre permalink

    hey. I want to know if you can provide a link of the study you mention on your article titled “On Interest”: https://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/on-interest/
    I Hope You Reply!
    Best Wishes
    Andre

  19. How is the Florijn doing now?

  20. Anthony, what is causing the massive inflation in Argentina? I doubt i can get the truth anywhere else. Other people will never admit the massive interest rates.

    • I haven’t looked into their situation, but most likely a credit bubble that next ‘needs’ to be contained with mounting interest-rates which indeed raises prices even further.

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