In Russia, in late 1980-s - early 1990-s along with huge crisis and inflation people often use a vodka bottles as an universal and stable currency. It was a problem to buy anything, including vodka, and vodka was a special interest for many Russians (not a thing nowdays, really, Russians eventually become more legible and less attracted to alcohol), so it get some special value. You could use a bottle of vodka as a payment for nearly everything, from the car repair job to food or medical service. :) Of course some goods or services could cost a box of vodka bottles, but that really works to some extent. Even people who don't drink at all often accept that currency to spend it later for things they need. However, when economic situation slightly stabilised and vodka become ordinary article of trade, that "people currency" quickly lost it's value.
As for a barter idea - I think it is possible to implement it without any intermediate currency at all. You need a huge database of goods for sale and for purchase where every participant add a list of goods he have for exchange and goods he want. If there will be enough users, it will be easy to calculate a lot of solvable chains of exchanges to satisfy most participants.
Say, in database you have following records:
- John have potatoes for exchange and want spade
- Sam have honey and want potatoes
- Alex have spade and needs honey
Obviously, you can quickly figure out the chain of exchanges to make the multipart barter. Using computers you could easily resolve barters including hundreds, or even thousands people. Here is of course would be a question of trust and deals confirmation, but I think it could be solved using modern achievements in computer science from p2p netowrking to blockchains and problem solvers.
In Russia, in late 1980-s - early 1990-s along with huge crisis and inflation people often use a vodka bottles as an universal and stable currency. It was a problem to buy anything, including vodka, and vodka was a special interest for many Russians (not a thing nowdays, really, Russians eventually become more legible and less attracted to alcohol), so it get some special value. You could use a bottle of vodka as a payment for nearly everything, from the car repair job to food or medical service. :) Of course some goods or services could cost a box of vodka bottles, but that really works to some extent. Even people who don't drink at all often used that currency. However, when economic situation slightly stabilised and vodka become ordinary article of trade, that "people currency" quickly lost it's value.
As for a barter idea - I think it is possible to implement it without any intermediate currency at all. You need a huge database of goods for sale and for purchase where every participant add a list of goods he have for exchange and goods he want. If there will be enough users, it will be easy to calculate a lot of solvable chains of exchanges to satisfy most participants.
Say, in database you have following records:
- John have potatoes for exchange and want spade
- Sam have honey and want potatoes
- Alex have spade and needs honey
Obviously, you can quickly figure out the chain of exchanges to make the multipart barter. Using computers you could easily resolve barters including hundreds, or even thousands people. Here is of course would be a question of trust and deals confirmation, but I think it could be solved using modern achievements in computer science from p2p netowrking to blockchains and problem solvers.