• Corpus ID: 250643946

Circulation of a digital community currency

@inproceedings{Mattsson2022CirculationOA,
  title={Circulation of a digital community currency},
  author={Caroline Mattsson and Teodoro Criscione and Frank W. Takes},
  year={2022}
}

• C. Mattsson, T. Criscione, F. Takes
• Published 18 July 2022
• Economics

Circulation is the characteristic feature of successful currency systems, from community currencies to cryptocurrencies to national currencies. In this paper, we propose a network analysis methodology for studying circulation given a system’s digital transaction records. This is applied to Sarafu, a digital community currency active in Kenya over a period that saw considerable economic disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Representing Sarafu as a network of monetary flow among the 40,000 users reveals meaningful patterns at multiple scales. Circulation was highly modular, geographically localized, and occurring among users with diverse livelihoods. Network centrality highlights women’s participation, early adopters, and the especially prominent role of community-based financial institutions. These findings have concrete implications for humanitarian and development policy, helping articulate when community currencies might best support interventions in marginalized areas. Overall, networks of monetary flow allow for studying circulation within digital currency systems at a striking level of detail.