Kiwicoin initiative/Citizens Online Income NZ

I know there are others here looking to actually use the Internet Party as a means of promoting their own digital currency ideas, or in this case, another organisations schematic.

My point of view is that backing the development of a domestic alt currencies should go hand in hand with becoming this countries principle advocate for crypto currencies learning from the mistakes of P2P file sharing by deterring the government from seeing users and innovators as adversaries, and right off the bat begin working with innovators and users to establish a safe environment for them.

That means:
- developing regulations around their use, defining for example what is a bitcoin, is it currency, or is it property/commodity.
- tax issues
- putting legislative controls on that can actually be enforced by law enforcement.
- amending laws that could be used to try to ban crypto currency transactions ( if there are any )
- establishing an NZ digital currency exchange

...and more.

I know Kim Dotcom has ideas for his own domestic coin as well, but I am still in two minds about this party actually putting its name to a specific coin, but rather the position I first stated.

As a first step kiwicoins would be an alternative to paper money, and its value is the same. The reserve bank would issue kiwicoins exactly the same as it does now for paper money. Kiwicoins would be legal tender and can be exchanged for paper money or vice versa without penalty.

The benefits at first will be to make transactions easier and cheaper. Anybody could start accepting payments without have costly eftpos machines, lower fees for accepting payments. Visa MasterCard etc charge 2-3% plus other fees.
Sellers don't have to worry about credit card fraud or charge backs occurring.

@davidwong Right, so the RB would be administering this.

Re: Bank fees/eftpos machines. Most stores already have EFTPOS machines, that cost is already sunk. Wouldn't switching to a new digital currency be quite expensive?

@davidjohnston existing eftpos machines could process kiwicoins(treat as new credit card type Eg AMEX, Diners etc), as well as supporting existing payment methods. At the same time everyday people could accept kiwicoin using their mobile phone, no need for specialised equipment or on going monthly fees for maintenance. Eg online sales, flea markets, charity collecting etc who carries cash around these days?

How does this compare to the M-Pesa method David?

@terangikaiwhiriake mpesa is controlled by a third party similar to visa/ MasterCard and the transaction fees and balances are also set and held by them.

Kiwicoin would be backed by NZ government and legal tender and traded the same as paper currency. It would also be based on bitcoin/litecoin technology so that transactions are tracked and verified using encryption. Fees would be set much lower or free than visa/MasterCard/mpesa, and accepting payments would be as simple as mpesa.

I agree with the concept, but yes need more details.
and I have this is more of a good replacement for the credit card system.