If Occupy Created Bitcoin

Programmed by the co-creator of Occupy Wall Street and powered by Ethereum, Sparkle is the world’s first redistributive currency.

The concept for Sparkle—a redistributive money—came to me as I watched The Miracle of Heliane, a political opera, being performed at Bard College on August 10, 2019. At the time, I did not know smart contract programming.

For the next 30 days, I put everything else on hold and taught myself Solidity, the programming language used to write smart contracts for Ethereum. I was consumed by the desire to master as much of Solidity as possible in order to launch Sparkle on the eighth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, a social movement that I had co-created in 2011.

Here’s how Sparkle works: every time Sparkle is bought or transferred, 2% is taxed and redistributed to the entire economy. This 2% tax is a transaction tax reminiscent of the Tobin Tax or Robin Hood Tax with one key distinction: the proceeds of the tax are redistributed proportionally to everyone in the economy. The system does not penalize being wealthy — after all, the wealthy will receive a greater share of the transaction tax — and still it rewards the poor.

Imagine if we all benefited from the luxury consumption of the elite.

Before the dawn of programmable money, this instant redistribution would have been…