Although often used interchangeably, ‘community currency’ and ‘complementary currency’ strictly refer to subtly different phenomena. Complementary currencies are designed to sit alongside mainstream money to address objectives that the conventional money system can’t.
Community currencies – the prime subject of this book – are a subset of complementary currencies that are tied to a specific, demarcated and limited community.
This community could be, for example, geographical (local currencies); business-based (mutual- credit systems); or even online (digital currencies). As such, a community currency is designed to meet the needs of this defined community, typically on a not-for-profit basis.
In fact, what has been historically the case is still true today: many people use several kinds of currencies, formally and informally, in their daily lives. This is not only when travelling to foreign countries and changing between, for example, euros, dollars or pounds sterling, but through loyalty cards, shopping vouchers, air miles, online gaming credits – all are currencies in their own right, even if not commonly described as such.
The plethora of currencies we interact with today – understood here as merely means of transaction – are numerous and varied.
Although the earliest forms of complementary currencies evolved in the 1920s, the specialised theoretical field of research into them was not established until the 1980s, alongside increasing practical experimentation.
Aided by an internet-connected world, general interest in and knowledge of currency design has been building consistently over the last thirty years, promising that this will become a more stable and systemic discipline in future.
The formal study of complementary and community currencies is still at an early stage, however, and has only entered university and government departments very recently.
The publicity storm around Bitcoin has marked the most notable popular challenge to understandings of money and finance in recent years – boosting awareness of currency design more broadly. Indeed, the very existence of this book, the EU-funded project that produced it and, last but not least, each and every individual reading it, are all indicators of the increasing momentum of currency innovation today.
Alongside advances in information technology, there is a growing awareness of money itself as not being a neutral and fixed element in the fabric of society. This realisation opens the door to many new possibilities for addressing prosperity, sustainability and wellbeing through monetary design. We now discuss some of the main developments that have brought us here.
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