Digital currencies and community empowerment in Austria: Gesell's concept of effective demand as a basis for local digital currencies

This paper presents a basic framework of a novel complementary crypto currency and a case study on its acceptance by Austrian people. The currency aims to mitigate the impact of economic crises on local communities by stimulating a constant money circulation within them. We therefore evaluated the concept of effective demand proposed by Silvio Gesell as possible underlying framework. Based on these findings a local crypto currency named circle coin was developed and used in a social survey. We find that circle coin had a much higher potential for general acceptance compared to regular crypto currencies. Furthermore, governmental support for a crypto currency was found to have no impact and the support of the local economy was the single most significant attribute which predicted the possible increased acceptance of circle coin. Given that participants indicated a readiness to use the new currency for everyday payments and refused to use others beyond a short try-out, this is vital information if the implementation of a local digital complementary currency is aspired.