The planning of the currency took about two hours, during which the majority of the girls decided to go home and get some more interesting stuff done. Only Lydia and Scarlett stuck through all of the planning process. The former agreed to be an early adopter of the currency as a simple point of realism. Lydia knew that something monetary being pushed by the Abyss Auction was inevitable. Scarlett stuck around because she didn’t want John to screw this up.

The currency would take three shapes. As the rarest one, there would be coins minted from various metals. Copper, iron and gold coins would be the most basic ones in circulation. Above that were magical metals that were roughly equivalent in value. Those would also come in the shape of a coin and be minted with the same appearance to counteract the colour confusion, stemming from being made from different elemental metals and alloys.

More regular in circulation would be the paper notes. They could be exchanged at Fusion outposts for an amount of metal equivalent to their value and that promise was going to be printed on every single of those notes. The paper currency was a contract between the person holding the note and the government, essentially.

Thirdly, there was the number. Because this was the modern age, people preferred to pay via electronic (or even magical) means. It trumped both paper and coins in convenience by a mile. There was quite a bit of delicacy attached to this process, courtesy of the question of fractional reserve banking.

There were two fundamental jobs banks had, even inside Fusion. One was to hold money. The other was to lend money. The two were essentially linked. Banks, at least at the core of their design, did not have money themselves. They had the money of people storing theirs. Since sitting money was bad for the economy, someone at some point had the brilliant idea to lend it out at interest. Part of the interest trickled down to the people who saved their money at the bank, part of it was used to maintain the bank structure and the loan was used to keep businesses with a steady offer of cash to expand or be founded with.

Of course, that practice had a couple of weaknesses, the most obvious one being when everyone suddenly decided to pull their money out of the bank. Because the bank had lent out part of the money, they couldn’t give it to the people that actually owned it. At that point, trust was broken, the bank would collapse and a bunch of savers would suddenly see their entire finances vanish – through no fault of their own. Because the reward for keeping that money in motion was so large, basically every country in the world was happy to take the risk of the occasional collapse.

From there, someone had an even brighter idea. If the recession and depression were virtually guaranteed to happen at some point, why not maximize the reward in between? Allowing banks to loan out even more money would certainly do so? How could banks give out even more money? Obviously, they couldn’t be allowed to just make more money up, that was the government’s privilege. There had to be at least some base guarantee. A guarantee that could then be multiplied.

That logic lay at the root of fractional reserve banking. A bank was obligated by the state to keep to a reserve requirement. In the case of a reserve requirement of 10%, if a bank held 10$, they could lend out 100$. There were numerous more checks and balances involving central banks and legislation that came to make sure that idea didn’t get too out of hand (as long as everyone actually did what they were supposed to).

All of this was an enormous simplification of what was often a massive spider web of transaction and reserves. Currently, Fusion’s policy was to keep things very simple and easily controllable. There was a central bank in the Hudson Barrier and state banks. Private banks could open up wherever and could lend at whatever margins they wanted. However, they could only lend the money of people who had contractually agreed for their money to be lent out. Those who only wanted the bank to hold their money had to pay a sort of subscription fee for the numerous transaction services. Paying money to a bank sounded a bit unorthodox to John, but those people had their savings guaranteed so it made sense. Banks were still a business themselves.

Those who agreed for their money to be lent had the advantage of free services and part of interest flowing into their own funds. The typical bank experience. However, if the bank ever collapsed or quit, their assets would all vanish along with it. It was the agreed-on risk.

John was happy with the current model, consenting economics were pretty important to him, but that wasn’t to say he may not want to change things in the future. Every stance towards banks and what they were allowed to do carried with it numerous drawbacks and advantages. At the moment, he was going for stable growth, but maybe there would be a time in Fusion’s future where flooding the market with capital was necessary. Scarlett was constantly nagging he should let these things go freely anyway.

Dramar demanded that fractional reserve banking be banned in its entirety, alongside debasing the currency. The black dragon had a very clear motive: keep the value of the money stable. Every bit of paper and every number on his bank accounts the founder of the Abyss Auction held had to translate to the maximum number of valuables possible. “If you want to mint more coins, mine more metal,” was the logic.

With the Mine being what it was, it wasn’t completely ludicrous logic. Regardless, John wanted the wiggle room. There were economic situations he might need to react to and deliberately limiting Fusion wouldn’t serve him. He and Dramar eventually came to the consensus that John was allowed to debase his currency in emergency situations, as long as he fixed the imbalance between money in circulation and metal backing it up as quickly as he could. Failure to do so would lead the black dragon to crash his markets in a fashion that would do more damage than some currency mismanagement ever could.

In terms of fractional reserve banking, he had to relent and promise he would never let them do more than 50%. That gave him a bit of wiggle room to get that currency debasing out there. Best was if he would never need it.

With those basics agreed on, they had to discuss the actual transition phases.

Step 1 was to get Fusion’s parliament to agree to this plan. John hoped that this would be relatively easy. The conservative forces in his government would surely approve of numbers that were easier to handle than having to think about every operation in the billions. More nationalistic leaning parties would be happy to have something that set Fusion apart from the world. Libertarian people might dislike this move away from the current global currency, because it complicated trade in the short-term. Them and the anarchists could surely agree that it was better to have money that had a tangible worth by itself, however.

The regulations that John had agreed to would be a bit harder to maintain throughout the entire voting process of the economy act. A few greased wheels and stating that he had the backing of the Abyss Auction for this entire thing should allow it to function. In the case that it didn’t, John would just have to gather everything that was brought up as counterarguments, work to solve the problems and present the plan again. Not that he could even suggest it. He would have to get the Centralists party to do it for him.

Having a section of the government that was loyal to him before Fusion may not have been the intended design of the system, but right there it saved him. ‘Perhaps I should have been a bit less principled and built a backdoor in for myself to suggest laws without going the extra mile.’ John considered the mistakes of the past. His aspiration of limiting his own influence had been noble, at least he thought so. Didn’t change the fact that it could get in the way of him taking decisive action.

Step 2 of the transition plan was to actually make the currency. Plans were all nice and dandy, but designing the mints, making the casts, putting production facilities up and control agencies in place all took time. It would require quite a beefy and effective data gathering apparatus to know how much currency was in circulation and how much metal they needed to stockpile to guarantee the value of all of it. With Dramar in their neck, applying fractional reserve logic to themselves just wouldn’t fly.

Step 3 was to promote the currency. This was finally where the Abyss Auction stepped onto the stage. They would make it a secondary option to pay with the Fusion currency rather than dollars. Eventually products exported from Fusion would have the dollar as the secondary option. All the while, people inside Fusion would be promoted to buy foreign goods with the metal coins through Abyss Auction backed discounts. That would put the first wave of the currency into the wider world. People would be kept from complaining through the Abyss Auction offering to buy the coins for dollars, as well as shipping them around free of charge.

Step 4 would kick in once the coins were widely distributed and accepted. People around the globe had to trust that Fusion had the metal to back its new currency. Once they did, they would be encouraged to switch to the paper and digital versions of it to, effectively, establish pre-coin Abyss Auction function. The hook would be constant reminders on the site that the dollar had no inherent value, while the Fusion currency could always be exchanged for some amount of work materials. The most valuable Fusion coin was made from Elementium, so people were heavily enticed to put their eggs into this basket.

Step 5 was the last step of the actual transition. The dollar would be phased out area by area as appropriate, until the Abyss Auction did all of its default payments through the Fusion currency.

Step 6 did not have to do with the plan, but both Dramar and John were perfectly aware that it would happen. Since Fusion’s currency was based on metals, there was nothing stopping other people from minting their own coins with the same metals for the same value. John did not want this, Dramar did. John had national interests, Dramar wanted more shiny coins in his hoard and didn’t exactly care where they come from.

Luckily, Dramar also wanted his paper money to mean something and the rest of the world had no permanently sustainable means of guaranteeing it. That was beside the point that people that weren’t part Fusion might ‘water down’ the alloy composition to fake the value of coins. They came to an agreement that the Fusion currency would continuously be displayed as preferred and that Fusion should strike mintage deals with other guilds.

If Rex Germaniae wanted to make its own batch of coins, they were more than welcome to. Fusion would send a few people over, test the purity of the metals, make sure they were minted correctly, and then declare them as approved for general usage – all for a small cut. Rex Germaniae got to make themselves a stack of cash, the Abyss Auction knew they were working with the real deal and Fusion got some money for very little work. They all won. Some more than others, but they all won.

Fusion would always be the main supplier of the currency; they were simply best positioned to that end. Where other people wanted to pitch into that supply, that had to be accepted and they were best advised to take the role of quality control. Even better would be if they could just buy the metals of the would-be minters in exchange for the paper currency. That would be a net zero for Fusion in terms of money, but they would keep a greater amount of control. Larger guilds were unlikely to play along with something like that unless they needed the money really quickly.

There were many other things that this transition would put into motion. Rival currencies would rise between step 2 and 6, without a doubt. Keeping Dramar on his side during that stretch would be vital to Fusion’s money to be the one that became the global currency. All of this may have been the black dragon’s suggestion, but once the ball was rolling and the new currencies all followed the principle of anchored value, there was no reason for the founder of the Abyss Auction to shackle himself to John. Only honour and practicality would keep the businesslizard on the Gamer’s side and he had a feeling Dramar had a lot more of one than the other.

They were shaking up global trade practices. There were all kinds of chips that could fall.

“I think that concludes what we needed to say,” John ended the discussion with a happy smile regardless. He had enough faith in this operation to warrant some cautious optimism. “If you don’t mind, I have to draft some legislation and spread it to the right people.”

“Just one thing,” Dramar stopped him. “You haven’t given it a name yet.”

“Huh,” John let out a surprised sound. “No… I haven’t…”

Somehow, that hadn’t come up in the entire discussion. They had discussed theoreticals and schemes. Giving this currency a name would make it more real than it had warranted throughout all of that. Now that they were certain what they wanted to do and how to go about it, a name was more than appropriate. He thought about it. What was a good name for Fusion’s new currency?

The jester inside him wanted to call it a Thorn, in reference to Scarlett. That was a rather unfriendly name for a currency, however, and he shouldn’t create such an obvious pointer at this secret they were still keeping from the public. Raves may have worked for the colour scheme of the coins, but was also too straightforward and his girlfriend would keep complaining about it. Haremoney? Odd to pronounce and too specialized again. Something simpler was better. Fusion Coin was too simple. Fused Coin had the same issue. Fusion Dollar? Uncreative. Fusion Taler? Forcefully foreign. He continued to think and then the epiphany came. It was obvious. He was the Gamer, there was one name that was doubtlessly appropriate for any game currency.