Enric Duran, also known as Robin Banks, meets me in an encrypted chat room because he still lives in hiding. “To survive I had to hack the monetary system, isn’t that funny?” he says.
“The first years of hiding in the underground, for security reasons I was using Bitcoin to manage some of the aspects of my situation,” explains Duran, who says that the more he learnt, the more he realized the potential of that “disruptive technology”. From then on, the idea of using a cryptocurrency, which allows you to avoid state and bank dependence, to advance the values of what he calls “the integral revolution” was born. He is talking here of a revolution which is nothing more, and nothing less, than a proposal for a post-capitalist society of Duran and the collective around him. Their idea is based on the re-empowerment of people in the decision-making process of all areas of our life, such as the economy, the politics, the society and the culture, among many others, and in a stateless environment. “In April 2014, I came to recover a cryptocurrency which has been abandoned, called Faircoin, and we used it as a tool to build a global open cooperative which we called FairCoop,” types Duran. Since then, with Thomas König, an Austrian programmer, who soon joined the project, this dispersed collective of activists, hackers and agitators have been dedicated to developing, testing and imagining everything that could be possible outside the capitalist world, the states, whilst under a cooperative umbrella and with a virtual currency.
“The first years of hiding in the underground I was using Bitcoin for security reasons to manage some aspects of my situation”, explained Duran.
The cryptocurrency is a unit of value which instead of being linked to a central bank or a commodity, such as gold, is linked to an algorithm. This is a mathematical formula that has only a certain number of solutions. Each time a computer or a server solves the formula, a unit of value is created, or a Bitcoin in the case of the most famous cryptocurrency of the world. Imagine that a group of programmers have designed a game. The rules of the game and the board are in sight of all, because it is an open source program, and therefore, all participants can monitor and ensure that nobody cheats. There is no need for middlemen. The players who solve the clue of the game earn points, or Bitcoins. This is called “mining.” But you can also buy cryptocurrency with other currencies or they can be given to you. The value of the cryptocurrency depends on supply and demand, not on the dollar or the neoliberal technocrats ruling the US Treasury. So the more people involved the higher the value. The mother board or program is called blockchain, which is like a public accounting book where you can see all peer-to-peer movements made in, for instance, Bitcoins. This traffic influences the value of the coin with respect to other cryptocurrency. One specific disadvantage of Bitcoin is its high volatility. Because it is still a small market, one can easily alter the price of the currency with relatively little money. However, the proponents say it is more difficult to speculate or create a bubble with it because it has a mathematical tendency to grow and later stabilize. Yet above all, the boom in using Bitcoins comes from the fact that its transactions are anonymous, independent of governments or banks and tax free. Critics say that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are used extensively for alleged money laundering and to buy illegal products and services on the net.
Duran says, though, that Faircoin goes one step further than Bitcoin. It changes the rules of the game. Faircoin has a mining system which is not dependent on the power of the computer, and therefore is more egalitarian and more ecological. In addition, this collective of activists is working on a new algorithm that will reward cooperation rather than individual competition. Also, the activists have set up four financial funds inside FairCoop, which would help to develop the libertarian ideas of the integral revolution on a global scale, if the currency succeeds. The idea of Duran and his colleagues is that either everybody wins or nobody does. “FairCoop and Faircoin are betting that everybody who participates is on the same train where for one to win, we all have to win. Personal success will only come if the collectives join, and this collective success will cause the success of many other autonomous and personal projects,” flashes on the screen as Duran clicks enter.
But the hacker behind the screen I am talking to admits that this is a project with still a lot of questions to be answered. Faircoin cannot avoid speculation, the purchase of weapons or money laundering with it. “In a decentralized money system we don’t have tools to control it in a strong sense”, he writes. “What we have is an organization and some communication tools to promote the use of Faircoin to cooperate [and not to speculate], to extend solidarity and to construct a new post-capitalistic society. For those who are looking for it, we are giving them a tool. While those who only seek the privacy of a cryptocurrency, those already have Bitcoin or cash as an option”, he types quickly.
Using faircoins is less abstract than it seems. From the 24th to the 31st of July the Faircoin week was held, where about sixty institutions, scattered around the world, were involved. They especially highlighted the 11 groups from Greece and 18 from Spain. During this week you could receive for free 40 faircoins, about 2 Euros, after installing the Wallet app to your mobile phone or computer and then you could buy fair trade products in partner establishments. “It is difficult to know the transactions made these days because there is no register and not all movements that you see in the blockchain are actual payments. But it is clear that we are just at the beginning of using Faircoin as a medium of payment and tens of thousands of faircoins have been moved this week, which amounts to a few thousand Euros”, Duran explains.
During this week you could receive 40 faircoins, about 2 Euros after installing the wallet app on your mobile phone or computer and buy fair trade products in partner establishments.
The presence of Faircoin has been imported to Greece this summer thanks to the friends of Duran who have organized a summer camp on the Greek island of Crete from the 15th of July until the 15th of August. Activists from the camp explain that the aim is to create a cooperative network with local groups to introduce the use of Faircoin, and generate the economic self-management of the ‘integral revolution’.
“The FairCoop team has caused much debate and activity in my city since they arrived”, says a Greek participant. “The revolutionary ideas which they have brought, their energy and warm personalities are essential to help us succeed. The worst of the Greek situation is that the unfulfilled promises of Syriza have contributed to the death of hope. The dictates of the Troika threaten people to accept what seems inevitable, the nightmare of fascism”, he condemned.
Enric Duran became known internationally after 2008 when he made public that he had stolen half a million euros from 39 Spanish banks in a form of small loans, which he was not planning to pay back. The money was allocated to social movements. Then, with a group of Catalan activists, he founded the Integral Catalan Cooperative, which in fact, brought the idea of the so-called integral revolution into practice and was, in a small Catalan scale, the embryo of FairCoop. The cooperative is a network, which ranges from restaurants, to housing projects, to health centers, all of which are opting out of capitalism as much possible, and, for instance, practicing tax evasion as a form of resistance. “This is a process of building a self-managed social practice outside state control and the capitalist system” concludes Duran which seems to summarize his life philosophy. Then he says he has to run to catch a bus.
A “Goodbye, and a Hug” screens on the chat room and the windows closes.
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