Why a digital currency for animals could find takers

livemint.com:

What if animals had their own money, and they could pay us to serve them? You may assume at first glance that this is just another way of saying, “world wildlife fund." But what if there is no human proxy involved? What if a wild elephant had his own digital money, irreversibly assigned to him, from which he pays humans to eliminate poachers or make reparations for running amok in a village? Also, what if he is able to replenish his bank account by being a star, or an extra, in an immersive virtual reality game? What if the digital currency is backed by real money and the most cash-rich human virtue, our obligation to nature, and hence has intrinsic value for humans? What surprised me more than the concept of “interspecies money" is the fact that the Indian government has agreed to listen to the Scotsman who has proposed it. I try to imagine his initial probing emails to the outer edges of Indian bureaucracy: “‘Interspecies Money’ would be a new currency that will be held by animals…" Yet, I gather that he will be heard at substantive levels of the Indian government later this month.

I wish to describe Jonathan Ledgard without using ambiguous labels like ‘thinker’ and ‘futurist’, which are words used for him by organizations like the World Economic Forum and the Pulitzer Centre. Ledgard is a creator, prophet and fund-raiser of ideas that use technology to solve some aspects of poverty.

He is also a novelist, and a former foreign correspondent of The Economist. ‘Interspecies Money’ tries to solve the poverty of animals.

As most of nature and its animals are in poor regions of the world, the new currency hopes to solve the poverty of many humans, too. Here is one way it could work: The central banks of some nations come