CognoCoin

What is CognoCoin?

CognoCoin, abbreviated as ₵₵ or ₵, is a blockchain cryptocurrency that was initially issued fifteen decades ago by an unknown party. Cryptocurrencies are common in the Cosmic Era, as an end around to the freemium economy model. Hard to do under the table business in a market that has swapped physical and digital currency for credit ratings and credit draws. The ₵ operates as a unregulated, non-state controlled currency that is functionally backed by the operational activity of the CogNet.

Who Uses CognoCoin?

The largest users of CognoCoin are third and fourth world nations, and lower to middle tier corporations.

Nations that are large and powerful enough to issue their own currencies generally do. The same applies to megacorps and hypercorps. After the CognoCoin, the next more stable currencies are the Nipponese Bank of the Red Sun's KikuCoin, with its emblazoned chrysanthemum, SEMDRC's RocketCoin, and the Atlantic Federation's FedCoin. These other currencies have their own flaws, with the KikuCoin often being in short supply, RocketCoin fluctuating with space traffic, or FedCoin having unexpected fluctuations secretly tied to the shadow war that broke out inside the AtFed government.

After corporations and small nations, the next largest user of CognoCoin are pensions, investment, and hedge funds. There is an adage that almost every modern investment firm sits on a foundation of ₵₵. Owning a cryptocurrency isn't illegal in the Cosmic Era, so many upper credit rated individuals will leverage some of their surplus credit into purchasing CognoCoin, or some other cryptocurrency. This can be used to directly purchase things, provided the merchant is willing to deal in ₵, or, the cryptocurrency can be sold a credit issuing agency, and raise the seller's Freemium Credit score. This is considered a wise thing to do.

The last common users of CognoCoin are shadowrunners, mercenaries, criminals, druglords, and other members of the technologically connected underground. Without access to an unregulated, non-accepted cyrptocurrency, their underworld activities would not be economically possible.

Why?

There are a number of world interest who would like to see CognoCoin, and similar unregulated cryptocurrencies brought under the sway of organizations like the various financial hypercorps, where they can be made to bow to the whims of the powerful and the elite, instead of being the independent force they are. Few campaigns mounted to destroy these currencies have made any progress. Attacking a cryptocurrency is generally regarded as an act of war against the issuing party, and no success has been made to find who owns and distributes CognoCoin. Attempts to subvert or undermine the currency have gone from at best, nowhere, to at worst, the attacking party being eliminated from digital existence. More than one anti-crypto crusader has found themselves declared dead and kicked out of the system, unplugging them, deleting them, turning them into non-persons.

The case of Andre Chauvin is considered a cautionary tale. Chauvin was a ranking investigator for Sigma Blue, and had ties and contacts across a dozen agencies, and he decided that his task was to bring down CognoCoin. There were too many pirates and wastelanders who were thriving, trading ₵₵ for goods, when they barely had the ability to having running water and electric lights. After three years, he seemingly found something and then vanished from the system. He actually didn't go anywhere, but he was written out of the code. Door sensors wouldn't detect him, his touch devices ignored his touch, his datalink went dead, and every electronic system had decided he was deceased, and any attempts to change this was identity theft or digital fraud.

No attempt to correct this was successful, and after several near fatalities, Chauvin was forced to retire to a Neo-Primitive community, where there weren't electronics and such. Before he passed, Chauvin complained that digital billboards stared at him, mockingly, or smugly.

The Straight Dope

The issuing party of CognoCoin is the M12.

The AISCs of the M12 are also involved with the world economies, and the freemium economy. The axiom being that the dichotomy is required for balance purposes and if they dont control some interest in both sides, the balance cannot be maintained. The reason for the creation of CognoCoin was a functional currency for the sentient computers of the M12 to use to accomplish their aims and goals, using their own ability to blockchain data to encrypt it. CognoCoin, and other cryptocurrencies exist as a reinforcement agent for the CogNet. Parties and groups interested in generating more coin engage in activities that either grow or solidify the reach and capability of the CogNet.