28 Feb 2014 / Telegraph – A new crypto-currency in the style of bitcoin has been adopted as the official reserve currency of the Oglala Lakota Nation.
The Lakota people are indigenous to parts of North and South Dakota and are made up of a confederation of seven Sioux tribes, with notable members including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who defeated Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
They now live in a semi-autonomous “nation” within the United States. This frees them to diverge from US law to a certain extent – some tribes have legal gambling operations, for example – but they remain overseen by the US Congress.
Developer and Lakota member Payu Harris has now developed a new digital currency called MazaCoin, based on the existing ZetaCoin protocol, and convinced chiefs to adopt it as the official national currency.
Harris told Forbes that he hoped it would help lift the tribe out of poverty: “I looked at how things were for the tribe now and suddenly had an idea about how we might fix it. We can’t continue to be 20 years behind the times, always trying to catch up. We have to be forward-thinking….. Read more
