[GNC] new namespaces for tokens and commodities

[Kalpesh Patel]

If token is pegged to a currency then is token not a foreign currency like
euros or rupees or gold or silver? 

Exchange rate is either pegged or free floating but none the less isn't it a
currency that is either sanctioned by group of people or a government (they
are group of people too)?

 

This is in broadest sense not taking into account whether it is fiat/virtual
or physical but from the sense of tracking it in the GnuCash or any other
financial management software perspective.

 

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Message: 2

Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 14:51:56 +1000

From: Weiwu Zhang <a at colourful.land>

To: Gnucash Users <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>

Subject: [GNC] new namespaces for tokens and commodities

Message-ID:

 
<CAEvpD62iX58r=iwHQEApgpynYsD-K4C8A8ZxamBTx_C=q5cd-Q at mail.gmail.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

 

It's been a few years since Bitcoin discussion last emerged on this list. I
realised that people often become very strong opinionated when it comes to
the topic of bitcoin, about whether it's a currency or not.

 

The philosophical question doesn't interest me, the practical problem is
many businesses (like some of mine) spends cryptocurrency for goods and
services and receives them for payment, and there has to be a way to account
for these transactions. Not wanting to annoy anyone by saying "overstating"
it as a currency, how about let's add non-currency namespaces instead.

 

Bitcoin is not the only trouble. Even without cryptocurrency, companies are
transacting with tokens already. Take BarterCard dollar for example, an
Australian dollar equivalent token popular among tradies which is absolutely
not a cryptocurrency, $600m annual transaction value. 24,000 merchants and
50,000 cardholders. Not to mention various reward points and "***Dollar"
industry tokens. Today's world is much different than 10 years ago when
Bitcoin was first discussed.

 

I'd propose two additional namespaces parallel to the current "Currency"
namespace: Tokens and Commodity

 

Tokens: this is for all types of payment tokens that are typically called
"Something Dollar" where something is an industry or company name. They are
typically pegged to a currency. "BarterCard Dollar" is such an example.
There are community dollars that is used only in a city or a community group
which can roughly fall into this category.

Commodity: this includes all kinds of a commodity that can be used for
payment.

 

I'll simply propose that Tokens have an issuing company, such as Qantas
Points are issued by Qantas, while Commodity does not. Bitcoin roughly falls
into Commodity since they are not issued by any organisation or individual.
We can maintain a commodity list in GnuCash officially and let Tokens be
user-defined.

 

This allows Bitcoin to be accounted in GnuCash without official endorsing
Bitcoin as a currency. Instead, I propose GnuCash supports commodity
accounts, a type of non-currency account that can be used to transact
without buying/selling the commodity first.

 

The programming work doesn't sound much to me. We can ignore the six-digit
precision problem (Bitcoin typically use 8 digits past the decimal point).
Is anyone interested and would such work be accepted?

I'm interested in sponsoring some of the efforts.

 

Regards

Weiwu Z.

 

 

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