Interview for "Origin" (U.S.)
about
P2P Gift Credit Card and Gift Finance. 2012.
Through my art project, P2P Gift Credit Card – Gift Finance, I wanted to explore the mechanisms of high finance and the notion of money, credit and debt in a era when the majority of the money in circulation is virtual, volatile and out of control, which is causing dramatic changes in our world and personal lives.
Since 2010 I've issued illicit VISA credit cards with unique numbers generated by the same algorithm used by the credit card industry. I counterfeit virtual money on those cards in British Pounds Sterling, a globally recognized currency. On the website P2PGiftCredit.com, everyone can apply for a P2P Gift Credit Card for free and generate other credit cards and money for relatives and friends. This scheme enables a decentralized peer-to-peer network of social relations sharing and building value based on engagement in the system of democratic money creation through a model called Gift Finance.
Gift Finance is the creative monetary policy that I invented to democratize issuing power, which is now monopolized mainly by private banks. My model democratizes and makes good use of a major financial instrument called Fractional Reserve Banking. So far it can be used only by speculative financial institutions to loan credit beyond the amount of real reserve available, creating money out of nothing and exploiting high interest rates on credit and consequently, perpetual indebtedness.
With Gift Finance, people can create money by loaning credit to friends without having actual funds, essentially multiplying money to make the economy flourish, which is the main purpose of Fractional Reserve Banking. The credit issued is without interest at all in order to keep inflation stable and avoid debt. This monetary policy can be applied to any currency and allows everyone to access to money creation and builds trust in networks of communities, because peers can create more money for close peers, subverting the scarcity of money and unjust distribution, like a democratic Universal Basic Income program. Gift Finance still makes use of banks, the treasury, present currencies and other instruments like credit cards but only as tools to distribute, transfer and track the money in circulation.
We can develop a new design for our money by just taking over and democratizing these tools which we have lost control over, and giving priority to people in general who deserve economic dignity for the sake of the whole society.
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