Re:A quick reminder why Bitcoin was created in the first place
by protomyth on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @12:29PM
(#14959501)
> Nebraska had its own banks
I thought North Dakota was the only state with its own bank. Did Nebraska create one?
To add to your point, many cities have "Christmas Cash" as a form of local currency for holiday spending to help local businesses.
Toronto Dollars existed. Bristol Pounds exist now and are thriving. Oakland just opened their own bank. Nebraska had its own banks. There are time banks, Berkshares, and so on.
I used to think local currencies are illegal but as long as they are Complementary Currencies and fiat is still legal tender for all debts, that's not true.
Look it up on wikipedia (virtual currencies, complementary currencies). Congress retains the power to mint coins, that's it. There has never been a court case that tested whether Congress can crack down on complementary currencies. And the USA never did, except in the Liberty Dollar case for sounding too similar.
So the article is wrong about that. You can actually make a centralized currency as a city or even as a community. What do you think payment networks like VISA, PayPal, Patreon etc. do? Sure some need to register as money transmitters. But others are just marketplaces like AirBNB. They do payouts via Stripe etc.