This article is part 2 regarding basic income, cryptocurrencies, and decentralized communities.
Introduction
The first article about SEEDS and basic income focused on several aspects within and outside the SEEDS community. The article partly focused on the current systems of harvesting and gratitude tokens as well as earlier ideas of basic income within SEEDS, called Universal Earned Income. Another focus was a presentation of what basic income is in general when looking at different political proposals and philosophical ideas such as among left-wing and right-wing political actors. This article in this series is highlighting the recent development with new proposals and ideas around basic income within SEEDS.
Ideas for SEEDS Basic Income (SBI)
Among the recent ideas for SEEDS basic income, there is a recognition that basic income is important in order to promote equality, sustainability, and inclusion within the community. Thereby, ideas for SEEDS Basic Income (SBI) are in line with what SEEDS aspire to accomplish in general regarding the regenerative civilizational and sustainable development of our planet.
Additional insights are that more people and organizations will get interested in using Seeds in their daily lives while the main idea is an unconditional basic income for all residents and citizens who bring value to the developments of the SEEDS ecosystem. This also means that receiving members need to have a certain minimum contribution score that is still to be decided within community calls and democratic procedures. There is partly a technical reason for a minimum contribution score in order to prevent frauds as via bots and to ensure that all residents and citizens have a certain degree of community commitment and monthly contributions as by being involved in important projects, co-creating solutions, and economic participation within SEEDS ecosystem.
Temporary money for basic needs?
Ideas of community-based basic income via cryptocurrencies have been existing been in several communities as Mannabase and Circles, but also that a successful implementation of such basic income is still hard to find among decentralized and crypto communities. This is partly the case because very few cryptocurrencies are used on a more “mainstream” basis and in daily life while most cryptocurrencies are still “subcultural” and limited to communities with a smaller number of members. However, the eventual SBI system could also provide additional publicity and attractiveness to the SEEDS community.
In order for SBI to be applied on a larger scale, SEEDS will have to grow in numbers after the “Go Live” phase. In practice, that would also mean a possibility for SEEDS to provide a monthly basic income to a larger number of residents and citizens. One of the main ideas is to make an SBI into monthly payments with a temporary expiration date. The argument is that digital money could be designed to expire similarly as plants function from growing to harvesting, which is already a model for Seeds.
This proposal for having SBI tokens as with a best before date is based on the function of gratitude tokens since they have no value unless being used during a certain lunar cycle (time period). For example, as the SBI grows in recognition and value over time, SBI will also start to be a lower need for rewards in general. The idea is also that SBI tokens are designed to serve the basic needs of human beings, such as food, housing, and education.
SBI for organizations as well?
Another insight is that SBI tokens should only be given to organizations that have successfully applied from becoming SEEDS members. This is connected to proposals on how SBI will function and impact the overall SEEDS economy where organizations receiving SBI could offer basic needs as for example food, medicines, and cleaning equipment.
Thereby, SBI could also function as an economic “norm setter” and even as a “game-changer”. By implementing SBI with tokens that can be used by organisations as well it would mean that certain organizations such as those producing food and housing could adapt their production and business models in order to be able to receive SBI tokens from SEEDS residents and citizens when they are paying as for food and other basic needs. Also, SBI tokens provided to organizations will be transformed into regular Seeds that organizations can spend, exchange or save.
SBI – a matter of time?
What is going to happen is still to be seen because the SEEDS community has still not entered the “Go Live” phase. However, when looking at the recent proposals, it can be said that the future SBI will probably be going to function in a similar way as progressive proposals for a UBI, which is more based on ideas of social and welfare rights. This has mostly to do with the that one of the core values of SEEDS as a digital society and decentralized community is equality and sustainability that SEEDS citizens are to enjoy and care about within the upcoming development.
