SFLuv Community Currency Quiz

The Tenderloin is one of San Francisco’s most misunderstood neighborhoods. It is first and foremost a residential community. Roughly 30 percent of its residents are children, one of the highest concentrations of children in the city. That means thousands of families call this neighborhood home.

The Tenderloin has a long history of activism and cultural leadership. It was the site of the Compton’s Cafeteria uprising in 1966, one of the earliest acts of organized LGBTQ resistance in the United States. It has long been home to immigrant communities, working class families, artists, and community organizers.

Small businesses are essential here. The neighborhood is filled with family owned restaurants, markets, salons, repair shops, cafés, and cultural venues. Across San Francisco, small businesses make up more than 95 percent of all businesses and account for a significant portion of local employment.

Geographically, the Tenderloin is strategically located. It borders Civic Center and connects directly to Market Street. It sits within walking distance of Union Square, the Financial District, and the Theatre District.

In the 1800s during the United States Free Banking Era thousands of locally chartered banks issued their own banknotes.

In 1932 the town of Wörgl Austria issued a stamp scrip currency during the Great Depression. Within one year unemployment reportedly dropped by about 25 percent before the program was shut down by Austria’s central bank.

In 2009 Sardex was founded in Sardinia Italy after the global financial crisis of 2008. It is a mutual credit network that has facilitated more than 50 million euros in annual transactions in recent years.

Bitcoin was also launched in 2009 after the financial crisis of 2008. Designed as a decentralized digital currency that could operate without banks or central authorities, the timing of its launch reflected a broader response to the crisis, when many people lost trust in traditional financial institutions and government-managed fiat systems. Cryptocurrencies emerged in part as an attempt to build financial networks that are transparent, rule-based, and independent of the failures that can occur in conventional monetary systems.

Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to maintain a stable value. Large financial technology companies such as PayPal or Circle issue stablecoins backed one for one by United States dollars or short term United States Treasury securities.

In 2022 millions of dollars in stablecoin donations were sent to Ukraine when traditional banking systems were disrupted.

California has piloted blockchain tools for vehicle title systems. British Columbia has explored blockchain supported digital identity systems. Estonia uses blockchain inspired technology to secure government records.

SFLuv builds on the long history of community finance but applies it locally using modern tools.

SFLuv is a 501(c)(3) charity that relies on a digital community currency to support its dual missions of placemaking (small improvements like murals and landscaping) and economic development in under-resourced communities. It is currently focused solely in the Tenderloin.

Muralists and other neighborhood “Improvers,” such as landscapers, artists, and small contractors earn SFLuv for their work. Volunteers are offered small amounts of SFLuv as gratitude perks.

Technically, SFLuv is a wrapped stablecoin meaning it uses stablecoins issued by large institutions then programs them with additional permissions and rules.

SFLuv can only be spent at participating local merchants and only approved merchants are given the tools to unwrap the token back into United States dollars.

Over time SFLuv aims to provide tools that allow merchants and residents to propose and vote on projects that benefit their neighborhood using the community treasury.