REGENERATIVE FUTURE

The Day I Met Money Miracle Bernard Lietaer and the Bancor People

Remembering my beautiful journey so far

Dark winter days do something to my mind. I’m musing. And remembering. In the next weeks, I’ll be telling you a bit about my incredible journey. And the special people I walked with on my journey towards a regenerative future.

Today, I want to tell you about my day with Bernard Lietaer, the famous money professor at the Sorbonne who passed away last year. A wise man who talked to me about the yin and yang of money and asked me to help farmers create vibrant markets with his money ideas.

Guy Benarzi, co-founder of Bancor was there as well with product architect Eyal Hertzog. Bancor was young, they started in February 2017. And I’m talking about the 3rd of May 2017.

If I remember well, it was only after this day that Bernard became President of the Bprotocol Foundation and strengthened the protocols of Bancor with his incredible money wisdom.

Why was I there? Well, in hindsight I don’t exactly know. The project Bernard suggested to me didn’t take off. But I did need to learn about regenerative money. So maybe it was just for this lesson that the universe sent me to Amsterdam on this specific day.

Or I might have been there to tell you money-stories afterward. And that’s something I gladly do.

Basic Income with Cryptocurrency

My great friend Anna Blume called me a few days before. She was excited. “We see how it can be done,” she said. “We can create community currencies with a dynamic flow of giving and receiving. Create an unconditional basic income with tokens. Bancor might be a key to our progress.”

We were video calling and I saw it in her eyes. She had an enlightened quality about her that excited me. But I had no clue whatsoever what she was talking about. Bancor? Cryptocurrencies? Blockchain? Etherium?

You must know that money has never been my field of interest. Yes, I’m knowledgeable about regenerative economies. About regenerative business models working with synergy and scope. About creating companies with those business models. And regenerating areas.

I realize how nature works with abundance in her all laws and how we have created our human systems with scarcity at its core. And how that doesn’t fit. But I had never really considered cryptocurrencies to be able to give regenerative solutions. I was still thinking about regular money and ethical banks.

For me, cryptocurrencies were the field of tech nerds (I say this in a loving sense because I know many wonderful tech-nerdy people) and greedy money speculators. Bitcoin was the only brand I knew. And what I heard about it was nothing ethical at all. And on top of that, blockchain is a huge energy-slurper. Not really my cup of tea.

The Invitation to Bitcoin Wednesday

But Anna is a great explainer. So, after our talk, I understood about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. And I saw the potential of Bancor. I’m not going to explain the details here. I guess you, readers of Data Driven Investor, know much more about the technicalities of it all than I will ever know.

And then Anna said the magic words.

“Can you come to Amsterdam next Wednesday? Bernard Lietaer and Guy Benarzi will both be talking at Bitcoin Wednesday. And I’ve been invited to talk to them in a private talk about Value Instrument, our solution for dynamic money flows. Join me. It will be fun.”

Well, going on an adventure with Anna is always fun. She lives in Berlin (Germany) and I live in Well (The Netherlands), so we don’t see each other that often. But when we do meet, exciting things start happening…

And Bernard had been my hero for years. He’s the professor involved in the setup of the Euro, quitting the project because he didn’t believe one currency for so many different European cultures could work in an ethical way. And he wrote the book The Future of Money: Beyond Greed and Scarcity.

Bernard was also a member of the Club of Rome. And the Club of Rome played a big role in the thought-leadership about the needs and opportunities of a regenerative future. Their report, The Limits to Growth was one of the seeds in the 70s that started the regeneration.

So, I took the train and traveled for two hours to Amsterdam. Never regretting for one minute I said yes to Anna.

Meeting Bernard and Guy

It was a brunch we had with 6 people. I remember Bernard, Guy, Eyal, Angela Hilmi (Associate Professor Agroecological Transitions at Coventry University), Anna, and I. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. We were a bunch of people trying to change the world. Driven. Enthusiastic. All in our own ways.

Guy and Eyal told us about their endeavors in Israel starting the Bancor Protocol. About their plans to relocate to Switzerland because it’s the only place on earth where you can try to change the money system without getting into deep legal trouble. About Bancor’s huge potential to change money systems. To make money accessible for all people, in all communities. To make money easy and independent from institutional banks.

Bernard told us about the nature of money and how it’s always related to local cultures. How money is connected to people. He explained about demurrage when I asked him one of my characteristic ‘innocent’ (by some people perceived as stupid) questions.

And I finally understood how money systems could work in line with nature. And why money has so many toxic qualities now.

One piece of advice if you are eager to learn in life, my friends. Always ask innocent questions. Never pretend to know when you don’t know. Especially not around clever, deeply knowledgeable people. They are often not aware that they are so far ahead of us, normal generalists, who know a bit about everything.

Smile your most friendly smile and ask what you don’t know. It’s how I gained my own deep knowledge about regenerative solutions to all human and planetary problems.

But Anna will always understand the deep wisdom of money better than I do. I’ll never exactly see what she sees. But at least after my questions, I could follow their thought-train over croissants, coffee, and cake.

And to share a tasty detail: I remember the cake was truly yummy…

Due to my questions, I’m now able to connect the money dots with all the other fields I’m doing my regenerative work in. Valuable insights gained.

Ethical Money

We talked about the abusive power of some new money platforms and the ethical questions for Bancor to consider.

And of course, my friend Anna Blume shared wise words about dynamic money flows for giving and receiving. She’s changing the world with her work, my friends. The time might not be exactly right yet for her deeply ethical thought-leadership and practical value-solutions. But mark my words. She’ll get there soon enough.

And luckily, all people at the table this specific Wednesday in Amsterdam recognized each other’s value and progressed on their own personal journeys.

During this meeting, Bernard asked me to tap into my network of European regenerative farmers and help Angela get a project off the ground for farmers and new money. Giving farmers a local market, shortening supply chains. And giving all people in the communities access to money in an ethical, vibrantly economic, creating way.

Great project. But in the end, the EU subsidy that was foreseen for this farmer project never took off. So it didn’t progress the way we wanted it to. I lost touch with Angela but I hope she created her farmer market project in another way.

After this meeting, Bernard published his May 2017 scientific paper about Bancor and an unconditional basic income with smart tokens. And he became closely involved with Bancor as president of the foundation, advisor, and personal friend to the founders. He sadly died last year.

After this meeting, Anna continued her impactful work on Impact Journey with Bert-ola Bergstrand and other influential changemakers. Organizing the Starmus Festival in Trondheim, Oslo in June 2017. JP Candiotti wrote about them giving a community message to Stephen Hawking. And of course, Anna is still very active as co-founder of Value Instrument.

After this meeting, Guy and Eyal indeed relocated to Switzerland and continued their work on Bancor. I lost touch with them and Bernard. But I still follow Bancor closely. And if you want to keep up to date on all matters ethical, money, and cryptocurrency, I suggest you do the same.

I don’t own any tokens myself. I can’t concentrate long enough to get the hang of it (yet). But I will one day when somebody asks me to be involved in a local economy and ethical exchange of value.

The Bitcoin Wednesday Meeting

The Bitcoin Wednesday meeting that evening was really fun. Anna and I were stopped at the gate at first because the meeting was sold out and we hadn’t registered. But knowing famous people who are going on stage performs miracles. We could pass the security after a quiet word from Guy.

As I expected, the people present were mainly tech experts and greedy money speculation people. They were blown away by Bernard’s words about the yin and yang of money. It wasn’t what they had expected at a bitcoin meeting. But he certainly touched a nerve with the audience.

The tech people were very eager to understand Guy about the potential of Bancor for world change. And even greedy people have hearts. Everybody in that room must have felt in their bones that something about our current money-system is not right and that there are definitely ways to change it.

Regeneration was not a widely used term back then. But now many regenerative voices are speaking up. And regeneration is not only perceived as an environmental issue but as systems change for social issues as much as bringing in line people and the planet. I’m sure Bancor embraces the regeneration in their conceptual design of exchange systems too.

In hindsight, I might have witnessed a world-changing event on that particular Wednesday in Amsterdam. And now, during the dark days of the pandemic and economic malaise, the memory comes back to me.

People in high places all around the world are scratching their heads about collapsing economic sectors, non-resilient businesses, and money systems that are failing us.

And I hope they’ll read the books by Bernard Lietaer again. Talk to the Bancor people about changing money systems in ethical ways. Talk to Anna about ethics, unconditional basic income for all, and dynamic flows of giving and receiving. Talk to me about business, economies, and societies.

Progress is always built upon past events.

Please read this article by Galia Benartzi about Bernard Lietaer if you want to know about the progress of money systems change. She tells you about the connections between ethical money and cryptocurrencies more clearly than I can.

I’m a connector of dots. And I’m mighty sure this particular dot on a Wednesday in May 2017 in Amsterdam is a powerful dot for the regenerative future we all dream about.

Takeaways

• Money is money is money. And it’s not a bad thing or a good thing. It’s embedded in a human system. At this moment, the system is based on scarcity. But we can change it to get in line with natural laws that are always based on abundance. But we need to change our human systems for that. Bernard Lietaer, Bancor, Anna Blume, and I all have unique puzzle pieces to make that happen
• Money systems should be inspired by nature and local ecosystems to work properly
• Money systems should be tied to culture, local human systems to work ethically
• Tag along with some famous people and you can crash a closed party anytime

Have fun and f*ck the system with high-tech and low-tech…

Thank you, Mike, for adding your wise energy to my words.

If you want to connect, you can find me somewhere on this beautiful planet. My hands in the soil and my gaze focused on the stars. Or you can find me via Linktree.

© Désirée Driesenaar