Thursday, January 3, 2013

New Store Proposal, Return of of the Sugar Bucks

Last challenge we did an experiment with microcurrency we called 'Sugar Bucks' (which I will abbreviate as $B.) It didn't quite work out. The two biggest complaints were 'i don't know what my stuff is worth,' and, 'I don't know how many I should print.' This challenge I am proposing a new concept to revive the system. Challengers each have a 'store' where they post goods they have gathered for sale. Exempted items are not permitted in a participant's store. Only goods that are foraged, farmed, hunted, etc. are permitted. Prices of goods in a given store are set to what a current market price would be in a regular grocery store. For every $B3 in food value a given participant has in their store, they are given $B1 to spend in other people's stores. Goods can also be traded directly for equal value goods if both parties agree to such a barter, but $B generated by those goods must be removed from the participant's wallet. (so if you trade $B30 of tomatoes for John's $B30 broccoli, you each tear up the $B10 you were granted for having those commodities in your store.) Anyone who can come up with a good mechanic for posting real food available for fake money, please do share. At its simplest I suppose we could make a shared spreadsheet.