Machi no Coin

IM-01 2: each town issues its own coin, but a town becomes an issuer by signing a platform contract with Kayac. IM-02 5: coins are handed out free for actions and there is no debt anywhere in the design. IM-03 3: every coin is minted against a recorded real-world act, such as a clean-up, a train ride or a first visit to a shop, though the rates are set town by town rather than by an index. IM-04 4: elastic with no cap, bounded by each town's budget. IM-05 5: unused coins expire automatically and return to the town's pool, which is genuine two-way elasticity built into the unit. Category average 3.8. IM-03 is the softest call here: issuance really is tied to verified human activity, but the band ladder above it asks for an oracle or an index.

SPS-01 1: there is no stability mechanism because there is no external price to stabilise. SPS-02 4: the band for issuance tied to real activity plus demurrage fits this exactly, coins minted per verified act and expiring if unused. SPS-03 3: region pages publish user counts, spot counts and total circulation over the past twelve weeks and refresh daily, and earn rates are published per experience, but nothing is audited. SPS-04 3: six years of continuous operation with no collapse, scored in the middle because the ladder asks for deviation from a target and this currency has no external target to deviate from. SPS-05 2: the design makes no distinction between short-term and long-term value because the coin is not a store of value at all. SPS-06 2: each coin works only in its own town. Weighted 2.53. SPS-04's bands assume a pegged asset and have nothing to say about a currency with no market price.

FI-01 5: the coin has its own unit and cannot be exchanged for yen, so its unit of account is fully its own. FI-02 5: there are no reserves at all. FI-03 4: the currency needs no banking, though Kayac bills the towns in yen. FI-04 5: there are no price feeds anywhere in the system. FI-05 4: a yen collapse would hit Kayac's revenue, not the coin. FI-06 4: the currency layer is already fiat-independent by construction. FI-07 4: seventeen town currencies run live on one standard, each with its own name and rules, and Shibuya runs its Hachipo coin alongside the convertible Hachipay, but the town coins do not settle against a shared base unit. FI-08 2: the platform is proprietary and the one cross-system link is a single pre-approved integration. Weighted 4.17.

TR-01 4: both apps shipped in April and May 2026, and the live area count has fallen from twenty-two in 2023 to seventeen today. TR-02 4: live since February 2020. TR-03 3: 189,850 cumulative users on the site's own counter and 3,898 iOS ratings, so the active base is scored one band below the cumulative figure. TR-04 4: about 4,450 participating shops and organisations, with 366 in Kamakura alone. TR-05 5: thousands of independent shops price their offers natively in coins, 50 for a train ride, 300 for a recipe, 1000 for an event swap, and there is no yen equivalent to quote instead. TR-06 4: Kayac is a listed company whose CEO hosts the currency's own summit, though the news feed has been silent since January 2025. TR-07 5: JR East, Shonan Monorail, seventeen local governments, FC Ryukyu and SC Sagamihara. TR-08 5: Japan's Digital Agency listed it as a digital implementation best practice, the National Governors' Association gave the Shiga coin a policy award, and it has had national television coverage. TR-09 3: coins are an incentive by design, but they buy no money, so the pull is the experience. TR-10 2: nine towns have ended and four have started since 2023, a net decline. TR-11 4: every town names its own coin, from Kamakura's Kuruppo to Chizu's Tego, and the SDGs framing gives members something to belong to. Weighted 3.77.

SO-01 1: Kayac can switch the platform off. SO-02 1: closed source, no self-hosting. SO-03 1: Japan only, and the design depends on staying outside the Payment Services Act by being non-redeemable. SO-04 1: all balances sit on Kayac's servers and users hold an account, not a key. SO-05 4: a listed company with a real organisation behind it. SO-06 2: the platform is the single dependency, plus the two app stores. SO-07 2: an account can be suspended under the terms of use. SO-08 2: the public activity feed shows named users and what they did, and the operator holds the analytics. SO-09 2: the expiry and issuance rules are visible in the app but enforced only by Kayac's server code. Weighted 1.57. This is the category the design pays for its simplicity in.

GO-01 3: Kayac sets platform rules while each town's council sets its own earn rates and experiences, and the site actively invites members to propose both. GO-02 2: Kayac plus seventeen town operators. GO-03 3: circulation, user and spot counts are published per region and refresh daily, while the deliberation is closed. GO-04 1: there is no token and no vote, so there is nothing to capture and nothing to defend. GO-05 2: app updates ship without a vote. GO-06 2: no separation between monetary and operational change. GO-07 3: non-convertibility, expiry and openness to visitors are stated principles, none of them protected from override. GO-08 2: Kayac can change issuance rules with limited community input. Weighted 2.24.

RE-01 3: launched in February 2020 straight into a pandemic that removed the footfall the whole design rests on, and it kept running. RE-02 2: one platform, one vendor. RE-03 2: if Kayac folds the balances go with it. RE-04 5: earn coins for good acts, spend them on experiences, unused coins expire. That is the whole mechanism. RE-05 3: two app stores and a proprietary backend, with no tested migration path. RE-06 4: the currency cannot bank-run because there is nothing to redeem, and it cannot depeg because it has no market price, and that has held live for six years. RE-07 3: municipal subscriptions fund it, and nine towns leaving is the evidence of where that model bends. RE-08 2: smartphones, app stores and a live connection. RE-09 1: earning requires being physically present and performing a human act, which is a design virtue here and still a 1 on this question. Weighted 2.68.

IN-01 3: free, no minimum, no credit check, and explicitly open to visitors and non-residents, but bounded to a town. IN-02 5: free to start. IN-03 3: no bank account and no money are needed to earn, though a smartphone is, and no adoption among financially excluded users is documented. IN-04 5: every coin issued goes to a participant for free, expired coins return to the town's own pool, and Kayac earns a platform fee rather than seigniorage. IN-05 4: identical monetary rules for everyone, with levels and bonus coins as a mild tier. IN-06 3: an account with a display name shown in a public feed, no government ID. IN-07 5: coins expire, which is demurrage, and demurrage is named in the top band of this question. Weighted 3.90.