How It Works

We need to take care of each other, as society continues to fall apart.  That's easy to SAY, but how do we DO it?

We at RINGs have done some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and we figure that if 100 people came together and agreed to take care of each other, they could meet most of their own needs. Not everything could be covered, but a LOT of basic needs could be met, if people traded with each other, instead of relying on corporations to sell us everything.  So, to get a community started, 100 active users is our target for a minimum viable group.

Let’s start with the theory of currency.  To facilitate exchanges between neighbors, we are setting up a currency called RINGs. But what is currency?

The original point of "currency," (before “civilization” changed it) was to facilitate trading amongst groups of people, so everyone could meet their needs and wants, more easily than is possible with simple bartering.  A currency is a set of IOU’s, where you give and receive from your community in equal measure.  There is some form of record keeping, whether formal or informal, to make sure everything is fair.

Currency, as we are using the term, is not Money.  Currency is generated by community needs and wants, and is distributed among everyone.  Money is generated by a governing authority of some kind, and is hoarded by the people at the top.   Currency, as we are defining it, is also not Cryptocurrency.  Crypto is just another form of Money, to be controlled, hoarded, and used for domination.

Currency is for people, Money is for the powerful. 

Under Money, people die every day— needlessly!— simply because they don't have this fake thing. These people give to their community, but they are blocked from receiving their needs.  What a devastating failure of humanity.

Both Dollars and Crypto are based on the goal of wealth accumulation.  In the current financial system, you are succeeding, if you gather as many Dollars / Bitcoin / "Whatever" as you can.  Dollars and Crypto are both similar to pyramid schemes in their own ways, where the wealth flows to a small handful at the top, with the people at the bottom of the pyramid left to suffer and die.

With RINGs, however, the goal of the system is balance.  You are succeeding, if your Rings balance hovers around zero!  A zero balance means that you are giving to your community as much as you are receiving.

Is it perfect? No.  Time banking / RINGs can't do everything money can.  The setup has some holes at this time. But it doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to get us through the rough patch society is going through.

When you create a currency, you have choices.  You can let it float, by letting people charge whatever they want for whatever they want.  Or you can fix the value to something.  

In a time bank, value is fixed to time. The value of an hour is fixed. In RINGs, EVERYONE EARNS 60 RINGS PER HOUR, whether they are performing so-called "low skilled" labor or so-called "high skilled" labor.

So that covers services, but the next question is how to charge for goods.  We are not doing a "pure" time bank, because we also want to include the ability to exchange physical items, not just services.  For ease of use for now, we are saying ®1 = appx $1. This may need to change, as the Dollar inflates, but for now that's what we are using.

The software we are using to facilitate the currency takes a levy of 2% per transaction.  This is in RINGs, so when you "pay" someone for an hour (for example), you will see 1.2 Rings (2% of 60 Rings) subtracted from the total.  2% of an hour works out to 72 seconds. 

This goes to the admin, to maintain the operations of the group.  The admin team performs the following tasks:

• Approving new accounts

• Moderating posts for safety

• Mediating any disagreements

• Helping with technical difficulties

• Sending out regular newsletters and community updates

• Onboarding new members, answering questions

• Ensuring everyone can participate, even people without computer access

• And more!

There is a governance board dedicated to total transparency and democratic control.  You can view every transaction on the registry, contact admins personally, and be involved in the operations.

Here is a playlist of videos you can peruse, explaining how to use the software.  For the most part, it is quite intuitive and easy to use!

One example video (of several we've made) is below:

For further questions, contact us.