---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Quora <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 4:27 AM Subject: New answer to "If the global economy goes kaput, what role will virtual currencies play?" To: [email protected] [image: Quora] New answer to "If the global economy goes kaput, what role will virtual currencies play?" *Stan Stalnaker*: Most of this discussion presupposes that currency as a form of measure will maintain its current structure. There is some evidence that increasing P2P digitization of information and money will enable virtual currencies of many stripes to gain traction - especially as the economy begins to regard non-traditional value sets as valuable. While it is unlikely that private virtual or digital currencies will ever replace nationalized currencies, even in a meltdown, it is also likely that private virtual currencies will gain in usage and value around emerging areas of the digital economy, and thus become more important. As these currencies proliferate, they will gain exchange value against each other, eventually giving rise to a factor we call Singular Value - a point where the Internet itself determines values of nodal points (whether goods, services or information) in relation to each other, in a form of realtime market - which will also serve as an exchange. This will signal the end of currency as a function of different 'languages' and the rise of a single value language that determines the price/value of nodal points in the economy. Math. The Ven currency is already being used to advantage in financial, commodity and carbon credit trades because it is relatively stable when compared to single national currencies, and includes a carbon component that makes transactions 'greener' at the theoretical and practical level. While these transactions are currently small, they point the way to diffusion of value and the opportunity for such currencies to gain wide acceptance. The key is always how usable and relatively valuable a currency is and how easily it can be liquified. If the user set, whether local or global, finds value in the use of the currency, it can gain traction. As the dollar is currently the most liquid and largest currency, it holds dominance, but even if other currencies become more accepted, their convertibility to dollars and other currencies make them part of the same system. The real question here might be whether the dollar would hold its value against other such currencies, commodities and 'real goods' -- and that is a question for any currency engaged in quantitative easing. The purely mathematical answer, the answer of a truly free market, would be 'no', because the math doesn't allow it. *To see the question page with all answers, visit: http://www.quora.com/l/O78k9s2aeP* Thanks, The Quora Team We sent you this email because you are following this question. To stop following it, click this link: http://www.quora.com/l/fP3OYr3VyV/_STOP_FOLLOWING To control which emails we send you, visit: http://www.quora.com/l/8u0JrLL4YO This email was sent by Quora, a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. To disable all email from Quora, visit the following link: http://www.quora.com/l/a2xYHl1m -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens