Bitcoin, the digital currency, works because the
increasing
difficulty of the underlying number crunching algorithm
required to create bitcoins means that only so many coins
can ever be generated. This will top out somewhere
around 21 million.
The first bitcoins were very easy to generate
or 'mine'
but
later solutions became, and are ever becoming,
progressively difficult to create. One pitfall of all this
effort
is that the solutions produce nothing other than bitcoins
and the mathematical answers generated have little
intrinsic value themselves.
New jokes and their variations have a similar property of
increasing rarity and the inherent problem of coming up
with new ones. There are very few new jokes and puns
generated after thousands of years of human effort. I'm
sure the Romans had mother-in-law jokes that Henny
Youngman would have been proud to pass off as his own.
The same goes for Jerry Seinfeld and CK Lewis although
new material does still occur.
The PunCoin monetary system would rely upon computer
analysis of the underlying concepts of jokes as well as a
human jury to determine whether a joke or pun is indeed
new and 'funny' enough to qualify as a joke. I'd suggest
that different categories of jokes would have different
valuations with esoterical observations of the human
condition being of generally higher value than say, fart
jokes - with puns being equivalent to small change.
The advantage of PunCoin over bitcoin is that, besides its
value as a currency, it provides humanity with some
extra
laughs. Much funnier than some dry algorithmic solution
at
any rate. What's more, the Halfbakery would become a
goldmine!