There’s a new story in Triple Canopy about The Liberty Dollar, an alternative American currency started by Bernard von NotHaus that experienced a grassroots backing among some shoppers and merchants, until the Feds shut it down. Unlike the “real” dollar, Liberty Dollars are in fact…

…warehouse receipts for actual gold and silver. Needless to say, the Federal Reserve isn’t too happy about these types of things and the FBI raided the Liberty Dollar warehouses and offices in ’07 and seized and froze just about everything they had. No one involved has been charged with an actual crime. The DOJ has issued a statement saying that the use of Liberty Dollars is a Federal crime.

In 2003, Libertarian writer Vin Suprynowicz called the Liberty Dollar a multi-level marketing system. After the raids, von NotHaus quit the Liberty Dollar business and founded the “Free Marijuana Church” in Hawaii.

Triple Canopy interviews the people and players behind the Liberty Dollar , and if you read it you’ll learn some things about what it means to be money that you never knew before.

Bullion With A Mission [Triple Canopy] (click the + sign on the landing page to move forward in the story) (Photo: Julia Sherman)

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