Towards Tangible "Virtual Money" - Position Paper

Abstract

Today, money forms its own virtual world that is destructive to real economy; monetary economy formed by circulation of money has grown in an imbalanced way to have unproportionate influences over the real economy that consists solely of production, distribution and consumption. Virtual world technology can potentially lower the cost of alternative forms of economy that existed in the past, and bring tangibility, or agreement with real economy, back to money. But most available economy systems in the virtual worlds today are equally destructive as the monetary system in the real world. This position paper proposes revived forms of commodity money (common merchandise being used as a medium of exchange) and drafts in real terms (exchange tickets with promises of providing equivalent commodities as specified), utilizing virtual world technology to form tangible monetary systems for the benefit of both virtual and real economies.