Ever since payment card usage began becoming more common, there has been correspondingly less need for physical representation of currency as cash or coins. The transformation of money into a digital concept has been extended to mobile implementations such as M-Pesa in Kenya and Google Wallet in the US.

What is less widely known is the history of complementary, community, or alternative currency systems that predate the digitization of money. I propose a brief (30 minute) session to discuss background information on what I call decentralized currency systems, share insights to recent developments in that field, and offer my two-cents on ways to move forward through a system wherein currency is traceable to how it was earned. I feel that this session would be especially relevant to the current economic environment and relates to concerns raised by the Occupy movement as well as ongoing handling of euro-currency/Greek debit crisis.