In 2003 the DaVinci Institute produced a landmark event called “The Future of Money Summit” which took place at the Omni Hotel in Broomfield, CO. One of the featured speakers was Bernard Lietaer, chief architect of the Euro.

At the closing session for the event Lietaer introduced his plan for creating a global currency, a digital currency called the Terra.

The Terra, as Lietaer envisioned it, would start as a trade reference currency pegged to a mathematical equilibrium of existing major currencies, and be backed by a basket of commodities, as opposed to a single one like gold.

After the press frenzy and nationally coverage resulting from our event, the Terra has descended into near obscurity, with little more than a Wikipedia entry to show it ever existed.

One speaker we desperately tried to bring to the event was Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, who was highly regarded as a disruptive visionary in monetary systems.

While Thiel, a darling of the media, seems to have stopped talking about creating a global currency, I recently came across one of his most recent investments in a company called Stripe, which is causing many to speculate. Here’s what I think is about to unfold.

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