Dual Currency System

The problem

Care work. Community organizing. Mentoring. Emotional labor. Volunteering. Showing up for a neighbor. Teaching your kid to ride a bike.

Trillions of hours of human contribution happen every year — and none of it registers in the economy. GDP doesn't count it. Employers don't value it. Society depends on it but has no way to see it, measure it, or reward it.

The work that holds communities together is invisible. The people who do it get no credit, no status, and no financial recognition. We think that's not just broken — it's a civilizational blind spot.

The hypothesis

If you give people two complementary currencies — one that flows (to signal what matters) and one that stays (to prove what you've done) — they will coordinate, contribute, and trust each other at a scale that neither money nor goodwill alone can achieve.

Dual currencies are not new

Complementary currency systems have existed for decades. Time banks. Local exchange trading systems (LETS). Community currencies. They all share an insight: money alone is a poor tool for capturing the full range of human contribution.

What's different here is the specific design: a flow layer that redistributes value universally, paired with a proof layer that permanently records what people actually do. Two currencies, one system — each solving a problem the other can't.

Helpcoins — the flow

Every participant receives 24 Helpcoins per day — one per hour, unconditionally. A form of universal basic income within the system.

You don't earn them by working. You receive them by existing. Then you decide what matters: allocate your coins to community tasks, causes, people who need support, or projects you believe in. When those tasks get done, contributors share the rewards.

At the beginning, Helpcoins may not carry much external value. But within the system, they're the mechanism that lets a community decide — collectively, daily — what deserves attention and effort. And as the system grows, so does what they represent.

PoETs — the proof

Proof of Engagement Tokens. Non-tradeable. Non-purchasable. They can only be earned.

Each PoET records a specific contribution: organizing a community event, mentoring someone, caring for an elderly neighbor, teaching a skill, mediating a conflict, building something that matters. They're permanently tied to the person who earned them.

Over time, your PoETs become a living portfolio — a more honest resume than any LinkedIn profile. Not what you say you did. What you actually did, verified by the people you did it with.

In a world drowning in fake data, fake reviews, and manufactured credibility, PoETs offer something rare: trust you can't buy. A record of human care that only exists because it actually happened.

Why this matters beyond the neighborhood

This isn't a volunteering platform. It's an experiment in making invisible labor visible — and challenging fundamental assumptions about what counts as contribution, who is productive, and how we measure the health of a society.

Where we are

This experiment has been in development for years — through multiple iterations, technical prototypes, and conversations with economists, technologists, and community builders.

We're currently exploring pilot opportunities to test the dual currency system in a real community.

Get involved

If this resonates — whether you're a community organizer, a local government, an economist, a UBI researcher, or just someone who believes invisible labor deserves to be seen — we want to hear from you.

Reach out →

Open questions

• What's the right scale for a first pilot — a building, a block, a neighborhood?
• How do Helpcoins gain value over time — and should they?
• What happens when invisible labor becomes visible — does it change how people contribute?
• Can a dual currency system coexist with the traditional economy, or does it need to replace parts of it?

Imagine a story you can open any time — like a Spotify Wrapped for your life as a human. Every meal you shared. Every stranger you mentored. Every hour you sat with someone who needed presence.

Now imagine looking at that story at the end of your life. Not at a bank account. Not at what you owned. But at every time you chose to show up.

What did you do with your time here — and who did you do it for?