From the outset, Harris put aside 10 million cash as reserve for a Lakota improvement fund. Other than the reserve, little units MazaCoin aside technically from Bitcoin, making it a little bit of a tough promote as an interesting “alt coin.” However Harris isn’t seeking to courtroom a big selection of buyers. He says he didn’t even want the hovering valuations seen in the beginning; he simply needs to construct a system that may ship worth to native folks, beginning with the Lakota on Pine Ridge and increasing to different tribes and reservations from there.
MazaCoin’s challenges at present are very totally different from these it encountered a number of years in the past. Harris and his group realized that so as to set up a nationwide forex, the tribal council wanted the flexibility to set financial coverage. “I used to be coming at this from the sovereignty side,” he says, “however having a forex construction of our personal and a vibrant, complete financial coverage is how we’re going to construct our financial system, it’s how we’re going to construct our markets, and it’s how we’re going to construct for the long run—it’s how we’re going to get away from federal funding. Interval.”
Tribes have some freedom from US laws, that means that new insurance policies concentrating on crypto won’t have an effect on MazaCoin.
At present, indigenous nations use the US greenback, making them depending on insurance policies set forth by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and Congress. However as “home dependent” nations, tribes have some freedom from US laws, that means that new insurance policies concentrating on crypto won’t have an effect on MazaCoin. Harris hopes this insulation may make MazaCoin extra interesting within the close to future, given renewed federal urge for food for crypto regulation.
Within the meantime, Harris has discovered different makes use of for all his know-how. He’s been engaged on tokenizing pure assets owned by the tribe, comparable to unmined gold within the Black Hills or coal reserves that may very well be commoditized. Harris can be storing tribal treaties, paperwork, and historic belongings on the blockchain to determine an indigenous system of recordkeeping. For him, it’s all about discovering new methods to claim sovereignty and pump a refund into the reservation.