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An alternative currency (or private currency) is any currency used as an alternative to the dominant national or multinational currency systems. They are created by an individual, corporation, or organization, they can be created by national, state, or local governments, or they can arise naturally as people begin to use a certain commodity as a currency. Mutual credit is a form of alternative currency, and thus any form of lending that does not go through the banking system can be considered a form of alternative currency.
When used in combination with or when designed to work in combination with national or multinational fiat currencies they can be referred to as complementary currency. Most complementary currencies are also local currencies and are limited to a certain region.
Barters are another type of alternative currency. These are actually exchange systems, which only trade items; thus without the use of any currency whatsoever. Finally, LETS is a special form of barter which trades points for items. One point stands for one worker-hour of work.
Often there are issues related to paying tax. Some alternative currencies are considered tax-exempt, but most of them are fully taxed as if they were national currency, with the caveat that the tax must be paid in the national currency. The legality and tax-status of alternative currencies varies widely from country to country; some systems in use in some countries would be illegal in others.
List of alternative currencies
·
Airtime minutes. After the collapse of Zimbabwe's currency in
2009, citizens started using talktime minutes
as an alternate currency.
·
American Open Currency Standard (AOCS)
·
Baltimore BNote in United States
BerkShares
·
Bristol Pound
·
Brownie points
·
Canadian Tire Money
· Chiemgauer in Germany
Commercial
credit circuit
·
Community Exchange System (CES) –
global exchange network
·
Detroit Community Scrip
·
Digital gold currency
·
DigitalNote – cryptocurrency with blockchain-based deposits
Eco-Pesa in Kenya
·
Eusko –
used in parts of the Basque Country
·
Eko – used at Findhorn Ecovillage
Exeter Pound in United Kingdom
·
Fureai Kippu (Japanese - for the elderly)
Ithaca Hours –
Ithaca Village in New York
·
Kelantanese dinar (gold) in Malaysia
·
dirham (silver) in Malaysia
Lewes Pound in United
kingdom
·
Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS)
– an example of mutual credit, is a type of local currency used
in small communities worldwide.
·
Monero – a decentralized
cryptocurrency that provides anonymity along with untraceability.
·
NuBits –
the world's first stable value digital currency.
·
Rábaközi Tallér
Sarafu-Credit in Kenya
·
Stroud Pound
Tibex in Italy
·
Tide detergent – In 2013, several reports
have indicated that Tide liquid detergent was used as a medium of exchange for
drug deals in the US.
·
Time Dollar – a state-sponsored alternative currency in
the U.S
·
Tumin – alternative currency in El
Espinal, Veracruz, Mexico
·
Toronto Dollar is another example of a
backed local currency.
·
Ven – a digital currency used in Hub Culture,
a private social network
·
WIR Bank – founded in 1934, oriented towards almost
100,000 small and mid- sized corporations in Switzerland.
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( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ )To see Wikipedia's original data, click here
( ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_currency )
To see the license terms, click here
