Basic Income Earth Network’s definition of Basic Income includes cash: “Cash payment: it is paid in an appropriate medium of exchange, allowing those who receive it to decide what they spend it on. It is not, therefore, paid either in kind (such as food or services) or in vouchers dedicated to a specific use.”

Technically speaking, if cash is defined as physical notes and coins, no Basic Income scheme using electronic money would ever meet the criteria of BIEN’s definition and we can close the discussion now. In reality, most, if not all Basic Income pilots use some form of electronic money. Furthermore, the monetary landscape is rapidly changing with programmable money issued by Central Banks, and the blockchain-jungle with all kinds of ‘cryptocurrencies’, most of which are scams, stocks or asset-backed without any transparency or control.

At the same time projects are sold as ‘Basic Income’ but in reality introduce expiry dates, limitations on what to spend the money on, collect all kinds of personal biometric data and personalised transaction data or have hidden agenda’s to sell financial products to marginalised people. This landscape is not only complex, but also often scary, creepy and unethical.

There is one exception: bitcoin. Bitcoin is designed to be a version of electronic cash that allows online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. The bitcoin-protocol uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks or other custodial ‘services’; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns the Bitcoin blockchain and everyone can take part. Bitcoin is money in the commons, gives absolute individual financial freedom and is designed to prevent double spending, such as fractional reserved banking. If stored properly, access to your bitcoin can not be taken away from you. Furthermore, no government, financial institution or anyone else can prevent you from spending or saving it. The core values of individual financial freedom and permissionless, absolute control over your money (in deciding whether to spend or save and what to spend it on) overlap the core values behind basic income. Could bitcoin be the basis of a network of decentralised WE THE PEOPLE sovereign wealth funds from where a Basic Income can be organised? We think it could.

articles:

Doing Bitcoin the Basic Income Way – Hilde Latour & Sarath Davala