I have to say I’m really liking dogecoin. I like the ethos and the spirit of the movement, as well as the fun of it. Yes it’s a meme, but it’s also an example of the cool things that can be achieved when people band together for fun rather than for greed.

The Dogecoin Jamaica bobsled team story is a perfect example of the power of collective spirit to get stuff that would otherwise not get done done. Dogecoin is about assigning pleasure and amusement value to transaction.

Also, it’s great that Dogecoin doesn’t take itself as seriously as Bitcoin.

The community just seems so much nicer, and less motivated by destruction of fiat currencies and oppressive central banks, and greed. It’s clever and ironic. It’s a positive value system, not a negative one.

I’m supportive of all crowd-funding efforts (which is essentially what this is). Crowdfunding being just a new way of saying charity. I also enjoy memes, which are a rich society’s way of trying to keep itself stimulated since it’s no longer preoccupied with survival. This is about pooling spare capital, transforming into a sought after meme, and transferring it to spread the positive value that’s been created to as many people as possible.

Not dissimilar to Keynes’ coalmine experiement, but using viral memes to distract rather than dirt pits.

Here we are crediting someone with “social value” for amusing you on the internet. Like people getting paid for posting popular Youtube videos of themselves falling off tables, clowning around, eating soap. What ever.

The important thing to remember is that social value is an inverse value. It’s the opposite of the value we are used to extracting from scarce capital. The value is linked to isolating a need for stimulation, and satisfying it with what starts as a relatively scarce experience. For as long as the experience is scarce it has value. If it’s any good it will go viral. But just like any bubble (also a type of distraction designed to stimulate idle capital) it will eventually peter out or pop, and a new one distraction will have to be found instead.

So you’re creating an inverse value set, a credit/offset market. An anti-dollar. There are many precedents, though no surprise mainly in the sustainability sector. Everything from carbon credits to RINs operates on a similar synthetic value. It’s about rewarding community with a scarce “merit” point for a socially useful activity, which is for the greater good. And if society values those merit points they gain transferability and purchasing power. Which means there’s even a value to “likes” and internet popularity competitions.

With carbon credits the value is further supported by the fact that govt dictates you have to have them. But i like the idea of things like Plastikbank which would see society organise voluntarily to create value units out of good deeds, recycling and so forth.

Which also supports a point I’ve made before that currency is evolving into a an organic social voting system. An amazingly dynamic democracy. This is because it allows us to vote on how to allocate wealth, respect and status via a popularity competition that occurs real-time.

This is why I keep saying it’s not a crisis, it’s just that our value system is changing.

The Bitcoin community actually fails to understand this. They’re trying to rebuild the old order, and replace an old elite with a new elite. This despite social forces attempting to euthanise the rentier and the elites. Unlike dogecoin, which I’m sure appreciates it has a lifespan associated with novelty, Bitcoin thinks its value is durable. It’s not.

And the key reason it’s not is because the value system is not zero sum anymore. Experiences and memes expand exponentially. That’s the great thing about them. The only real “net” scarcity in our rich societies is the capacity of the human brain, and its ability to be focused on something.

So bring on more dogecoin and less Bitcoin is what I say! And in the spirit of things I would happily trade any of these totally not priceless pieces of Kaminska art– which I’ve been hoarding for far too long — for a dogecoin donation to a weird and whacky cause that would other wise never get funding.

Time-lapse fish (oil on canvas, c. 2000)

Dimension about 1.5m wide.

Then there’s my sombre screen print (one of five) based on a Chartres cathedral detail:

The dimensions are largish. About a 1m

Last and not least, Fishy fire ball (Framed, Oil on canvas, about 75cm long):

*I will also just give them away, since otherwise they are just going to be disposed of (sustainably!)

UPDATE: In sad news, my other half judged “time-lapse fish” to be a “piece of crap” and has disposed of it in what I suspect was probably not a sustainable manner. We shan’t be talking tonight. Chartres and Fish fire ball are still safe for now.