the-why-and-how
Compare changes
content/the-why-and-how
0 → 100644
+ 41
− 0
A milestone to be remembered as the community’s efforts had until then been almost entirely devoted to launching production of the world’s first 100% P2P “freedom-enabling” “libre” cryptocurrency. Looking back at 2017, we have grown from the initial 59 members to well over 600 as of early January 2018. Local ğ1 networks have sprouted across France and in nearby French-speaking countries and the project is gathering growing attention and gaining momentum.
Duniter’s goal is to create money following the principles of the Relative Theory of Money in which the currency is “minted” by way of a Universal Dividend (UD or DU for Dividende Universel in French). Because each vetted member is a co-creator, the money offers symmetry for all: whatever the age and whether alive or not. Each individual (companies do not create the ğ1 but can participate in the network) co-creates the same percentage of the total money supply in a given timeframe (40 years with the ğ1).
In order to clearly identify each member and ensure that no-one receives two or more UDs we resorted to a WoT. We borrowed the term from PGP, the famous open-source encryption software although our implementation is vastly different. The WoT is there to make sure a real-world identity matches that on the network.
However the process can’t go on forever as the web has a maximum diameter. Each member only has a set number of certifications he can grant and cannot be “too far” from other members. If you’re interested in the fine print, I invite you to read this article from 2016 called “Introduction to member management” .
To help distribute the cost of running nodes across all members a redistribution service was created. It works on a voluntary basis whereby members make a small donation which is then split between all nodes working on blocks at the given time. Bear in mind we are talking about money that already exists here. This service is not part of the heart of the money creation itself.
The more members contributing in hash power the sturdier the blockchain (less likely to be compromised). The software must be as cost-efficient as possible to keep calculating costs at a minimum. We’ve therefore opted for a personalized difficulty tailored to each member. In practice this means that a member with a potent computer is slowed down so that even a Raspberry PI will be able to generate blocs in the future. We’ll cover this better in a coming article.
“A currency is something that embodies value, can be exchanged on the basis of its value, and can be transferred from place to place. In the world economy, the currency is money, not a thing of value in itself but a carrier of value, a surrogate of value. Finally, the currency must be fluid –easily flowing from place to place or situation to situation- in order to bind the ecology together. It is what makes the ecology a single system rather than a mere aggregation. If currency is hoarded, it is unproductive and does nothing to increase the overall value of the ecology. In a balanced ecology, nothing is wasted. Each actor has an essential freedom of action, and so is free to discover and exploit locally available resources that would have been overlooked and thus wasted by a system that relied upon centralized control. If you’re not fast you become food. And there’s no begrudging the discarded waste that somebody else finds useful.”