Over at Transition Culture is an interesting interview transitionculture.org/ with Brian Goodwin en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Goodwin Goodwin makes some interesting observations about alternative currencies. Here's a little snippet:

One of the keys in natural phenomena is the diversity of different strategies used. We have adopted a single strategy for currency and economics and our economic system is based on and driven by that. We need to diversify our currencies...

In Argentina the economic system has collapsed, that is the conventional dollar-based system has collapsed, but they’ve put in place an alternative. They are trading and exchanging goods, and they are using their own local currencies. This is therefore a spontaneous thing to happen, it’s part of the process of localization, going local, developing appropriate local currencies, connected to useful resources, like energy, food, buildings and so on.