• You can find the Fort Collins Rock Farm Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at https://www.rockfarm.org/terms-of-service and https://www.rockfarm.org/privacy-policy.

• No. Rock Farm ROCKS are not a crypto or digital currency or token, do not use (or need) blockchain technology, cannot be mined or created with algorithms, are not pegged or benchmarked or floated against the value of the US Dollar or any other international currency, cannot be traded or used as an investment product or vehicle for speculation or as a hedge against inflation. And most importantly, ROCKS cannot be used outside of the Fort Collins economic community. They’re all ours!
• Crypto vs ROCKS…where do we start?! First, there is no relationship whatsoever, conceptually or in practical application, between the two. Fort Collins Rock Farm ROCKS are born out of an ancient method of exchange that has been proven successful as a medium of exchange for millennia and has been embraced and supported with common sense regulation by every US regulatory institution (i. e., Internal Revenue Service, US Department of Treasury, etc.). Although the underlying creative impulses that brought about the crypto currency mania should be respected and admired, crypto has nevertheless been designed from inception with embedded flaws that were based on purely speculative assumptions about the ultimate valuations that would be achieved by these crypto currencies.
• Let’s zero in on just one example with Bitcoin to make our point: Bitcoin was designed to have an intrinsically limited supply with a gimmick like fractionalization out to ten decimal places so that (theoretically) no matter how speculatively high the price reached, everyone, no matter how limited their resources, could participate in the mania (at some level). We believe this ten decimal place structure and the assumptions that go with it, to be somewhat comical and elitist – it is a world where those who can actually afford to buy or speculate on full coins, complete with their fantasizing about million dollar values or more*, rely on the “little people” participating way out at the tenth decimal place to pile in and act as the fuel for these elites to become the monetary “masters of the universe.” Maybe…but we don’t think so.
• The entire conceptual design and belief system set in motion by the enigmatic Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, reminds us of a medieval feudal lord who creates his own metal ingots (coins), often with his own profile pressed on the coins, so that the peasants who generate all the economic activity and trade, do so in the interest of, and benefit for, their lord and ruler of the land as depicted on “his” coins. As currently designed, we think it’s just plain silly when put into proper perspective: the world needs less decimal places, not more…but time will tell.
• Another example when thinking about the global economic stories around Bitcoin would be in El Salvador where the young, seemingly modern and insightful President declared Bitcoin legal tender near the peak price of the crypto currency bubble. (A complete disaster at the expense of tax payors with added and unnecessary risk to pensioners if the President acquired Bitcoins at exorbitant prices and continues to spend considerable tax revenue to add to his crypto gamble.) Were there really ever more than just a handful of El Salvadorians that could buy a full Bitcoin at $65,000 per coin? The belief that all those decimal places are necessary because of assumed future Bitcoin values in the millions of dollars and therefore necessary so that the “peasants” could participate, is fantasy and extrinsic folly.
• Here at the Fort Collins Rock Farm, we actually believe the opposite. Namely that with the size of the current global economy the decimals can be dropped in favor of simple whole number pricing in ROCKS – a whole number pricing system which avoids the flawed silliness described above as well as other historically questionable practices such as “just below” and “charm” pricing*. Clearly whole number pricing will be much more practical and beneficial to all participants in a local economic model as it avoids both the impracticality and the deception that can exist with fractional pricing.
• The bottom-line reality is that no one desiring to engage in normal day-to-day transactions with crypto currencies can afford Bitcoin’s peak prices and associated volatility. Although the idea was to make Bitcoin a commonly used currency, there is zero chance that the general population would be able to endure the financial harm of using a medium of exchange that can drop in value by 75% over the course of a single year...again…it’s just plain silly when put into proper perspective. Monetary gimmicks have been around since the beginning of time. The United States government once minted a $100,000 bill!
• In fact, Rock Farm ROCKS are antithetical to the concept, design, and nature of crypto currencies or fiat money because ROCKS are born out of only the purest and most ancient form of exchange, (micro) barter…a real, mutually agreeable, intrinsic economic transaction valued simply in whole numbers and recorded as “units of account.” (What should be foundational for any monetary system). Additionally, and paradoxically, what makes ROCKS even more unique is that you can transact with ROCKS that you have not yet created or acquired.**
• “America’s happiest people have a few traits in common: they value community…”*** When the Fort Collins community comes together and “farms” economic ROCKS through day-to-day economic transactions, we collectively create our own trustworthy, self-supportive, and self-perpetuating local and very real economic ecosystem. This is achieved as a direct result of the organic daisy chain of economic activity that continually grows within the community as one transaction in ROCKS automatically leads to others. This is not the case with crypto and is the primary beneficial method that uniquely allows ROCKS to generate economic activity that beneficially ricochets around the Fort Collins community.
• ROCKS foster social and economic participation and balance by encouraging and stitching together positive social and economic behavior in ways that have never been achieved before…all facilitated through the Fort Collins Rock Farm smart phone app. It achieves this enormously advantageous outcome without reducing any individual or merchant opportunity...actually…it enhances it. In other words, unlike crypto or any international fiat currency that is created BEFORE or WITHOUT any grounding economic activity or connection, Rock Farm ROCKS cannot be created and recorded without a mutually beneficial social or economic event occurring solely for the benefit of our Fort Collins community…now that’s a sound and beneficial transaction!

* “If the Price Ended in 99, You Likely Overpaid”, Wall Street Journal November 26-27, 2022
**Qualified Rock Farm members will be able to use ROCKS with the requirement of opposite and offsetting transactions within 3 months. Why, because “in community we trust”.
*** “Very Happy Americans Are Pleased to Say Why” Wall Street Journal April 24, 2023

• The Rock Farm side-by-side economic model is not intended to replace money or the existing domestic monetary system, but rather to supercharge and retain real economic activity and prosperity specifically and only for individuals and business owners in Fort Collins. Here at the Rock Farm, we want our community to thrive on all levels socially and economically, but economic competition from developing suburbs, online retail giants or other unexpectedly disruptive developments such as COVID and other eco/geo/political events is inevitably problematic for undisrupted economic growth. In addition, supply chain or labor disruptions can potentially cause significant harm to our local economy and the prosperity of our community members and businesses. Think of all the small businesses just on College Avenue that were (unfairly) put out of business during ( because of) the COVID crisis. The Rock Farm movement, by recognizing this realistic vulnerability to our community as well as desiring more sensibly cohesive and enhanced participation in economic activity, utilizes new smart phone app-based technology designed to create a social and economic model that facilitates and promotes loyal local connectivity with unique benefits embedded into every transaction – benefits that you cannot get when using dollars…with or without a crisis!
• There is a wide array of immediate and material benefits when transacting with ROCKS (aptly named in the spirit of the nearby Rocky Mountains), rather than dollars, that in the long run, just might be creatively unlimited. To start, it is unquestionably beneficial to all if the local economy performs more like a true marketplace where all transactions have the potential to be negotiated. This is exactly what the Rock Farm enables with new, super-efficient app-based technology. Why is this so? Because the rigidity of a posted and potentially stale price for any product or service reduces the potential beneficial economic activity that could be achieved with only a slight modification in price! That is the nature and purpose of periodic “discounts”, “sales”, “special offers”, “couponed prices”, etc. etc. It is a flexible mechanism that allows a merchant to stimulate activity and hopefully entice prospective buyers with a “win-win” transaction based on the need of the moment (e.g., moving dated retail consumer inventory in a store or food at a restaurant that would otherwise end up being wasted, etc.)
• Open-minded and mutually beneficial real-time pricing flexibility is already here in various forms in our economy as a more efficient concept that usually drives win-win economic activity. We see this every day with dynamic demand-based and/or time-based pricing for everything from airline seats to concert tickets to luxury goods to hotel rooms, to name just a few examples. This recognition that dynamic flexibility is fairer to both buyers and sellers and enhances the satisfaction of both participants in the transaction will drive a continued evolution to include even more mundane day-to-day economic transactions. Even the Wall Street Journal recently provided a lengthy article titled THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO HAGGLING, coming out of the gate in this article boldly declaring that everything "from cars to hotels to medical bills, the cost of things we purchase every day is more negotiable than you might think." Why? because everyone (wins) benefits!*
• Supplementing this notion of enhanced flexibility through negotiation, Rock Farm app-based technology also allows for real-time “blast notifications” to alert Rock Farm members of special “offers”, ”events”, or “sales”, or other social or charitable events and opportunities. Think as you walk down College Avenue of the retail clothing store you have seen with a rack of sale items rolled out onto the bricks of College Avenue with a “70%-off” sign. That sign is designed to entice shoppers into the store to both move old inventory and potentially gain additional new inventory premium sales. But…the sign is only visible to those who happen to be walking down College Avenue.
• By joining the Rock Farm this retail clothing store can potentially reach thousands more potential customers in the Fort Collins community with a simple Rock Farm app “blast notification” – and at zero advertising cost. Or think about the breakfast joint that could send out a blast notification an hour before close offering all the excess food on the griddle, maybe BLT’s for a deal in ROCKS, so they don’t have to throw out the food. Or, the bookstore that could send a blast notification that a last minute live acoustic guitar performance will take place that evening in the store’s café – helping to fill seats and generate revenue. Or, a pub that might send out a blast notification that all the pool tables and games are free tonight after a CU Buff’s win, attracting a larger crowd than otherwise. It’s the creation of a zero-downside-opportunities every day, at any time, for members of the Rock Farm.
• Micro-job opportunities are another benefit for members of the Rock Farm. Micro jobs, which are short in duration (e.g., a few hours) benefit both those who need the work done, and those that are looking to earn a few ROCKS by working for a couple of hours. These micro labor opportunities might be a great way for a student or a dynamic and resourceful maverick of the gig economy (sometimes referred to as “on-demand” or “side hustle” worker), who wants to earn ROCKS even in short wrinkles of time. This fantastic functionality in the Rock Farm app fulfills a real need for businesses in the community such as a restaurant or local merchant facing the painful problem that short-term labor is becoming impossible to find. With the Rock Farm app, a restaurant for example could post a micro-job to bus tables for a few hours Saturday night. Or, a retail store could request a replacement for an employee who called in sick at the last minute. Or, a local lighting store could send out a blast notification for someone to stock the shelves when new inventory is dropped off. By compensating these short-term workers for these short-term tasks in ROCKS, the economic activity and earnings is guaranteed to go right back into the local community…and the dynamic web of economic transactions benefiting Fort Collins continues to grow.
• Lastly for this short sampling of benefits, the Rock Farm app’s functionality supports volunteer and other social opportunities by creating all kinds of occasions to knit together positive social and economic activity in ways that have never been achieved before. The Rock Farm app facilitates and rewards** members for acts of goodwill within the Fort Collins community. Socially, you can even create a simple meet-up group of “ROCKS pals” at a local joint on College Avenue.
• The bottom line is that connectivity in a community is simply not enough. There must be a wholesome experience and benefit derived by both participants in each connection. The Rock Farm is simply facilitating potential social and economic activity in Fort Collins to be more sensibly fluid and achievable to get to a beneficially consummated transaction or social experience. This will significantly and uniquely accelerate the velocity of economic activity solely for the benefit of the Fort Collins community creating an organically self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing matrix of Fort Collins residents and businesses by way of our very own Fort Collins Rock Farm ROCKS. No one will ever want to leave Fort Collins because it will be just too fun and connected here!
• Finally, if you’re wondering how this might all really look and feel for Rock Farm members transacting in ROCKS, or what a merchant does with ROCKS if they accept them, see our tabs that include comics strips and other valuable information at the top of the website.

* ”The Complete Guide to Haggling”, Wall Street Journal May 27-28, 2023 (Weekend Edition)
**Potential rewards for volunteering are still being determined

• Barter is the purest form of economic exchange, has been utilized for thousands of years, and is actually still in use today. Unlike the unregulated and “cryptic” crypto markets, barter is the only legitimately recognized alternative to US currency (that we know of) that is fully understood, recognized by the US government, and then regulated and accounted for, through existing Internal Revenue Service laws and regulations. We believe the only reason barter hasn’t taken off in the general economy is because it just hasn’t yet benefited from “micronization” and then widespread use via modern technology. The use of this new technology, when applied to “tried and true” barter, changes the game entirely and makes micro barter the most sound and accepted alternative to common currencies – and just at a moment in time when these alternatives are becoming ever more desirable and even necessary.
• Smart phone app-based technology has delivered a giant evolutionary leap forward economically for everyone. Remarkable and unforeseen benefits have been realized over the past few years with new app-based technology, particularly when it is applied to historically “tried and true” and often ancient concepts that have survived through the ages. Here are just a few examples of ancient ways that have been modernized through app technology with enormous success because of their innate value, regardless of the evolutionary phase of humankind:
• Carpooling has been around since way before cars, before even the horse and buggy when people joined ancient caravans for the benefits of travelling in a group which provided safety from bandits and cost savings. Now, WALA!…modern day smart phone app-based technology created the ability to take this ancient form of ride sharing and turn it into today’s ubiquitous ride sharing companies!
• The concept of a small-town bed and breakfast accommodation can be traced at least back to ancient Greece where the word “xenial” described gracious and warm hospitality, even to travelling strangers that might knock on your door in the middle of the night. SHAZAM!... modern day smart phone app-based technology created the exceedingly popular ability to rent your home to make extra money and conversely to stay at someone else’s home (or even better their vacation home) instead of staying in a hotel!
• Now think for a moment about ancient barter and compare it to the current global and domestic monetary system which is deeply flawed,* fragile and ultimately vulnerable to shocks that could be triggered in an unlimited number of scenarios. One does not need a Ph.D. in economics or have any understanding of monetary policy to intuitively sense the many risks that are inherent in a system whereby someone else is creating the money you use and another someone else is storing it for you (e.g., a bank) under their terms. When you really think about it…It simply doesn’t make sense that your participation in the economy requires a medium of exchange you don’t control. With no intention to convey this like a “Chicken Little”, but rather to make our point, imagine for a moment that you woke up one day and the entire global monetary system had collapsed. (We are NOT predicting that!). It sounds dramatic, but no matter what the losses might be for governments or individuals, and contrary to where your imagination might take you, social and economic activity would not stop. Day-to-day life would pretty much keep moving along as it has for the past forty thousand years. It would have to! Farmers would still plant their crops, engineers would still fix bridges, doctors would still perform surgeries, restaurants would still serve breakfast and lunch and dinner, mothers would still feed their babies, and children would still go to school…you get the point.
• Think about it…what always happens when there is a crisis? The answer is that differences quickly fade away and individuals and communities come together to help each other solve problems for the benefit of all. Adaptation and innovation springs to life, often with unimaginable creativity and sensibility that did not exist prior. And the solutions that emerge are almost always based on a return to what has been “tried and true”…a return to what has always worked for millennia. In this scenario, the solution would have to be BARTER! Micronized through the Rock Farm app so that this infinitely sound and sensible method of economic exchange can be used as easily as common currency.
• Through the Rock Farm, we are simply incubating an organized and innovative, community based, side-by-side, local economic model that solves problems, provides benefits, and strengthens and fortifies our local Fort Collins community and economy WITHOUT HAVING A CRISIS! This is achieved by modernizing and micronizing barter in ROCKS that have a look and feel that is no different than using money yet provides significant, enormously enhanced benefits and increases the velocity of economic activity solely for the Fort Collins community.
• Here in Fort Collins, we have a unique population with a foundation of progressive thought and openness to innovation that will certainly enhance the organic connectivity of our community – a population which ranges from a large young student body to active retirees to business professionals to “essential” workers to civil minded residents to creative types and everyone good and valued in between. Interestingly, this local community focus has already quietly emerged in Fort Collins; blossoming over the past few years with the “Love the Local” theme that can be seen everywhere around town. Many restaurants and other establishments pride themselves on creating menus based on “local” foods and ingredients. And “local” craftmanship is in evidence throughout the town. Some city codes even require the consideration of hiring “local” companies in logical situations. Even one of our large grocery stores uniquely participates in contributing to the local economy with a list of small local businesses stretched along the entire front window of the store. Now, through the Rock Farm we have our own social and economic model with economic transactions named after our own beloved College Avenue – all in keeping with the mission to retain and increase economic benefits and prosperity within the Fort Collins community.

* See the Rock Farm’s History of Currency white paper

• Ancient barter is truly the purest and most sound form of economic exchange that irrefutably delivers mutual satisfaction of trade at consummation. Its only real challenge historically was the bulkiness of some transactions, such as the exchange of 25 sacks of grain for two oxen. This nuanced stumbling block, of course, hindered more common and efficient use of barter and historically gave currency (i.e., money) a slightly upper hand for short periods of time. However, repeated failures of currencies always led the populous back to the more pure and grounded barter – a cycle that continued repeating for thousands of years and continues even to this very day*. Fortunately for all of us right now, this minor, but critical ancient “sack of grain for an ox” hindrance, can be completely overcome and additionally supplemented with remarkably beneficial enhancements to barter transactions – enhancements that are delivered via smart phone app-based technology from the Rock Farm. Remarkably, these technology-based enhancements are precisely grounded in the same approaches that were used to overcome ancient inefficiencies and stumbling blocks – and with astonishing success as we highlighted with our examples in a separate FAQ.
• “Micro-barter” transactions recorded using ROCKS in the Rock Farm ledger, uniquely enable two halves of common everyday transaction to occur at different times and with different participants for different products and services. But importantly, these micro-barter transactions will have the look and feel as if you are transacting with money…but with greater efficiency and with so many more social and economic benefits that will accrue to the Fort Collins community. One of the many imperative benefits of the Rock Farm model is the level of detail of everyday transactions that is recorded, saved, categorized, organized and made available for Rock Farm members. This systematic and detailed record keeping of micro-barter transactions provides members with the valuable information needed to fully participate in the “sharing (gig) economy” and conduct “on-demand”, “access”, and/or “side hustle” economic activity – all of which is destined to continue to develop and expand.
• The bottom line is that what has historically and consistently been “tried and true” social and economic benefits to society for millennia, are now being reborn via “micro-barter” powered by modern smart phone app technology. This will likely prove to be the most sound, sustainable, and sensible side-by-side social and economic advancement for a city like Fort Collins. This evolution, which delivers powerful benefits through its social and economic interconnectivity, is at the same time ultimately protective far beyond the extremely fragile, high-risk monetary systems that currently dominate around the globe. Smart cities of the future like Fort Collins will not just be a place where mundane day-to-day commerce takes place, but rather, will be a community where beneficially wholesome social and economic activity both enhances and fortifies the local economy at the same time.

* See the Rock Farm’s History of Currency white paper

• The seed of great idea should be incubated, born and flourish because of an innate practical value that it brings forth – a value that is recognized, embraced, and fostered by the natural organic activity and growth that comes from human activity, commerce, and astute appreciation. This community benefit feeds growth, utilization, and expansion, and then creates a further desire to support further growth, further utilization, and further expansion all for the benefit of the community…essentially a type of organic fractal economic expansion of economic activity.
• Fort Collins Rock Farm ROCKS is the emergence* of such an idea. ROCKS will grow and flourish as a direct result of Fort Collins’s ideal milieu of highly educated and highly receptive progressive community – a community that ranges from college students to retirees to professionals to “essential” workers to creative types and everything good and valued in between. It is a community capable of creating a never before achievable, beneficially social and economic ecosystem that is far beyond ordinary day-to-day mundane monetary transactions. (see FAQ #) Transacting with ROCKS through the Rock Farm will create and weave together lasting positive social and economic experiences and prosperity for all of us here in Fort Collins…the potential benefits could be unlimited!

*In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, “emergence” occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that “emerge” only when the parts interact in a wider whole. (Source: Wikipedia 2023)

“The past-is a much better teacher about the properties of the future than the present” (p.314).

“Tonight I will be meeting friends in a restaurant (tavernas have existed for at least twenty-five centuries). I will be walking there wearing shoes hardly different from those worn fifty-three hundred years ago by the mummified (Otzie) discovered in a glacier in the Austrian Alps. At the restaurant, I will be using silverware , a Mesopotanian technology, which qualifies as a “killer application” given what it allows me to do to the leg of lamb, such as tear it apart while sparing my fingers from burns. I will be drinking wine, a liquid that has been in use for at least six millennia. The wine will be poured into glasses, an innovation claimed by my Lebanese compatriots to come from their Phoenician ancestors, and if you disagree about the source, we can say that glass objects have been sold by them as trinkets for at least twenty-nine hundred years. After the main course, I will have a somewhat younger technology, artisanal cheese, paying higher prices for those that have not changed in their preparation for several centuries.

Had someone in 1950 predicted such a minor gathering, he would have imagined something quite different. So, thank God, I will not be dressed in a shiny synthetic space-style suit, consuming nutritionally optimized while communicating with my dinner peers by means video screens. The dinner partners, in turn, will be expelling airborne germs on my face, as they will not be located in remote colonies across the galaxy. The food will be prepared using very archaic technology (fire), with the aid of kitchen tools and implements that have not changed since the Romans (except in the quality of metals used). I will be sitting on an (at least) three-thousand-year-old device commonly as the chair (which will be, if anything, less ornate than its majestic Egyptian ancestor). And I will not be repairing the restaurant with the aid of a flying motorcycle. I will be walking or, if late, using a cab from a century-old technology, driven by an immigrant-immigrants were driving cabs in Paris a century ago (Russian aristocrats), same as in Berlin and Stockholm (Iraqis and Kurdish refugees), Washington, D.C. (Ethiopian postdoc students), Los Angeles (musically oriented Armenians), and New York (multinationals) today.” (P. 312)

~ Nassim Taleb - Antifragile