When financial crises and recessions hit, regional and local economies suffer devastating ripple effects. As activists look to shield their local economies from some of the harsh impacts of globalization, they’ve come across one potential solution to tackle the heart of the problem: create community currencies and change the money itself.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis a group of friends on the Italian island of Sardinia set up Sardex, an electronic business-to-business mutual credit system. Six years later, around 140 million euros worth of transactions have been made. Similar models exist across Europe, like Utrechtse Euro in the Netherlands and SoNantes in France.

In addition to these trade networks, local currency schemes have been emerging around the world as technological innovations offer new ways to circumvent the usual issues of scale and sustainability. As community currency schemes become easier and cheaper to manage, sophisticated experiments keep growing. But none of them quite match the scale and traction of the Bristol Pound.

The Bristol Pound is the UK’s first city-wide community currency and the “largest and most institutionalized in Europe” according to researcher Coco Kanters, who has been studying community currencies since 2013. Available in both paper and electronic form, one Bristol Pound is equal to one pound sterling, and can be spent freely in any of the city’s participating independent shops.

Five years after its launch, 5 million Bristol Pounds have been spent and 80,000 digital transactions have been made. The Bristol Pound has just over 2000 users, including around 800 businesses. And since 2016, Bristolians can pay their local taxes, energy bills and transportation fares using the local currency.

The Bristol Pound was launched in 2012 by local Green Party politician Stephen Clarke and three other Bristolians worried that the proliferation of chain stores in their city would threaten the community life and small independent character of their hometown. The unique identity of Bristol – which street artist Banksy calls home – has played a key role in the success of the currency.

Kanters says Bristolians tend to have “a greater appreciation for local businesses as opposed to multinationals.” The city is home to the longest and last traditional high street – or Main Street — in the UK and Bristolians are determined to protect that local spirit. For Clarke, Bristol is a Goldilocks-style fit for a local currency. “It’s not too big, it’s not too small,” Clarke says. “It’s the right number of people, the right kind of political support, the right activist vibe.”

That vibe was clearly illustrated in the 2011 Tesco riots. Thousands of Bristolians organized and campaigned for weeks when Tesco — the UK’s biggest supermarket chain – announced it was opening a store in Stokes Croft, a neighborhood known for its strong counter-cultural scene. The opposition campaign escalated as city residents sought to protect the independent character of their hometown.