Game On!

This is it folks……….September 22nd will be the official opening of ‘De Florijn’……..

We’ll come together in Utrecht (Ubica) for a small party, and even though I realize most reading this will be too far away to accept the invitation, I want all of you to know you’d be most welcome to partake in the celebrations.

At last! It has proven a thorny path to get it all programmed, but it’s here now!

Sure, in the years ahead, we’ll keep developing, but this is our version 1.0, suitable for ‘production’. Now we can at last start the business of building a viable network of businesses and consumers paying with ‘De Florijn’.

Honestly, I have difficulty believing it myself, but this is my dream of ‘the future of money’. De Florijn, and the Talent architecture upon which it is based, has got it all:
– Fully interest-free with zero cost (!!) credit
– Convertibility to Euro
– Always sufficiently available
– Impervious to foreseeable international financial shocks
– Impervious to speculation and ‘making money with money’
– Providing much needed liquidity where it matters: on Main Street
– Taking only one minute for individuals, and a few minutes for businesses to open an account
– Ultra low cost: free for individuals, only F 10,- per month for businesses
– Seamless payment with a smartphone or even older mobile
– Ready for paper money (although we will be offering that at a later stage)

Priorities
Our first priority now is to build a network of paying businesses that allow us to operate professionally. Already there are about 250 accounts, 30 businesses and 220 private individuals/consumers.

We have a solid marketing plan, based on good contacts with the Alternative Media in the Netherlands (who reach hundreds of thousands of people) and resellers, who we offer good compensation for every business they connect to the network. We hope to activate a lot of people in this way.

Our second goal is to work with people everywhere who want to open up high powered alternative currencies to support their own communities and countries, based on the Talent architecture.

Surely, this is not for everyone. But if Usury is the problem, than obviously lending interest-free is the solution.

A fundraiser
This is always the challenge when embarking on basically any product that requires wider acceptance to gain usability and effectiveness: how to survive until you are breaking even?!

Raising funds for this project has proven an uphill struggle from the beginning. Alternative currencies are both esoteric and clearly anti-establishment in nature. Hardly very attractive to State, Banker, or Venture Capitalist types.

So we, me and my colleagues, are turning to you. We need your help. This project needs and deserves wide(r) support. Monetary reform cannot be left to a handful of people, and it cannot be achieved overnight. At least those who understand the issues need to be involved, or it will never work. A lot of money and years of research and development has gone into it already. M., the man who has programmed everything, has worked with me since 2012 and has spent hundreds of hours on different versions of the system.

We are looking to raise some money to help us get through the first year of operation. We are hoping to raise at least ten thousand dollars. This money will go to operational expenses (travel, telephone, hosting, meetings, marketing materials) and if at all possible subsidizing our cost of living, so we can focus as much as is humanly possible on building the network.

We are looking for donations, but if you would be interested in investing a larger sum of money, that would be great too. We can offer you very reasonable terms. Please contact me at ‘realcurrencies(at)gmail.com.

If you would like to support monetary innovation along the lines as we have been discussing here at Real Currencies, than this is your chance.

Use the donate button below.

Thank you so much.

PS: We’ll keep you posted on further developments!

Anthony Migchels is an interest free currency activist and founder of the Gelre, the first regional currency of the Netherlands. His articles can be found at http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com. Contact him at [email protected]