No-one likes it when prices rise. And particularly when there are shortages.  Zimbabwe is in the hot seat and it’s not because the economy is just doing badly. It has everything to do with money. When prices rise across the economy, the usual suspect is money printing.

Money printing is deceptive because a government can increase the money supply without anyone knowing. The incentives are obvious – when a government has expenses but not enough tax revenue, it can print the money it needs.

As money printing increases, the effects filter into the economy and pressure on businesses to increase prices becomes intense. Prices rise slowly but inevitably it leads to key price spikes.  The final result is that people become impoverished on a nation-wide scale. It’s a tragedy and is what is happening in Zimbabwe now. This is the number one cause of the fuel price hikes.

There is no solution other than to stop the rampant money printing. As new bond-notes have been created, the government has found it particularly difficult to keep the promise of a 1:1 bond-note to US dollar ratio hence the talk about introducing a “new currency”. This is financial code-speak for abandoning any sense of money printing restraint. If there is more money printing, there will be a lot more of these price hikes and shortages of fuel and other basic commodities. Money printing leads to inflation and large-scale money printing leads to hyperinflation and to shortages.

It’s a depressing situation to be in – the government understandably doesn’t want to stop spending (to its credit, it’s trying hard to tighten its belt) but if it goes down the money printing path, there will be a slow and systematic destruction of the Zimbabwe way of life. We have seen it before and it isn’t pretty.

What is the solution?

The good news is that we have a viable alternative available to us. The concept is for the people to choose a currency that is fixed in supply, that is owned by everyone, that reflects day to day trade in Zimbabwe and which people can trust.

It’s audacious but doable with the latest technology. This is what we’re going after with ZIMBOCASH. It is a new money system where money cannot be printed in any way.  Once the blockchain is launched, no-one (not even the founders) will be able to increase the supply of ZIMBOCASH.

Based on blockchain technology, the ZIMBOCASH system will provide a decentralised banking system that will make it practically impossible for any government to shut down, seize your money or stop cross-border flows.

We must just say that we are not against the government. We support them. We’re just advocating for a system where nobody has the right to print money. We call this Monetary Justice. People have the right to rely on the money that they use.  We are very open to discussions with the government in this regard – together we can turn around this situation in Zimbabwe to really transform this beautiful nation.

Registration Period

We’ve had extensive discussions within the ZIMBOCASH community regarding the registration period. The general view is that we need to give all Zimbabweans a chance to register so we have decided to keep registrations open. This is a movement for the people.

However, there must be an element of scarcity in the allocation process to incentivise sign-ups. To do this, we are reducing the amount of ZIMBOCASH allocated at each three-month registration interval. In the first period, each person who registers will receive 100 000 ZIMBOCASH until the end of March 2019. This will reduce systematically thereafter.

We feel that this is fair for people who sign up early, yet it still makes ZIMBOCASH available to all Zimbabweans over an extended period.

Ambassador Program

The ambassador program is growing. Our Ambassadors on the ground are building the ZIMBOCASH community. Door to door. Community by community. Town-hall by town-hall. This is a movement of Zimbabweans for Zimbabweans by Zimbabweans.   If you’d like to register as an ambassador you can do so here:

https://www.zitenga.com/ambassadors/

Community Share Campaign

Our community share campaign is also in full swing.  You get 100 ZIMBOCASH every time someone clicks on your link from a unique IP address – we’re incentivising people to have ZIMBOCASH conversations.  You'll get this link when you sign up.

Warm regards

Philip

I’m Philip Haslam. I am the communications guy at ZIMBOCASH. We’re part of a broader community of people working on establishing sound money in Zimbabwe. We’re passionate about this as a life goal. We’re sending out regular Fireside Chats to keep you informed – feel free to unsubscribe from these below. It won’t affect your registration with ZIMBOCASH.