DesignUp x Futur2 — Future of Currency 2025Restore • Earn • Share • Empower • Transform
What if we inherited debt for the planet's damage, and could only pay it back through repair?
Becoming acriticalthinker
I had been circling around for a while through coursework and curiosity. I was drawn to how it used design not to solve today’s problems, but to ask better questions about tomorrow. It felt like permission to think bigger, weirder, more provocatively than typical UX work allowed.
I stumbled on this challenge at the right time through destiny (or LinkedIn’s algorithm) and it became my entry point into applying futures thinking, moving from curiosity about speculative design to actually building coherent, defensible scenarios.
1.1The Brief
What does currency look like in 2050?
What if it measured trust, care, or attention instead of just money?
Design a speculative future set in the year 2050. What does “currency” look like in this future? Does currency mean money, or something more — trust, emotion, reputation, energy, attention?
Capitalism’s Favorite Trick: Let Tomorrow Pay
Today's extractive economy
Right now, we damage the planet and future generations pay for it. Companies pollute, governments subsidize extraction, we all consume and the bill goes to people not yet born.
There’s no real system forcing us to fix what we break. Carbon credits can be bought and fines can get paid.
The accountability gap here is massive, regenerative economics and “right to repair” movements are growing, but currency itself still rewards accumulation over everything else.
So I asked:
What if this damage is tracked like debt? And what if the only way to reduce it is through actual repair?
Welcome to the Redemptocene
By 2050, climate tipping points have been crossed. Forests are dying, resource wars are happening. Societies realise they need a new approach.
2050 scenario: the Redemptocene
Instead of voluntary sustainability, they make accountability infrastructural. Everyone gets assigned a Legacy Debt score, a number representing:
- 1Historical damage (the world you inherited)
- 2Your projected lifetime impact
Think of it like a carbon footprint, but for everything. It’s tracked across three categories:
Eco-DebtYour environmental footprint
Trust-DebtYour social reliability
Impact-DebtYour societal contribution
The key rule: you cannot reduce this debt with money.
3.1Enter RE-SET
The currency system that makes it work
Restore • Earn • Share • Empower • Transform
When you complete verified regenerative actions, you mint RE-SET tokens. You can choose to:
- 1Redeem to erase Legacy Units → Directly reduce your debt score
- 2Convert to real benefits → Unlock perks like transit passes, housing subsidies, green loans
How it works
Step 01Inherit Legacy Debt, in Legacy Units (LUs)
Inherit a debt score representing your share of environmental and social damage; historical burden plus projected lifetime impact.
Step 02Perform regenerative actions
Reduce debt through verified repair work. Money doesn’t work here, only action does.
Step 03Verify (app + satellite / AI)
Actions get verified through satellite monitoring, AI systems, and community validation.
Step 04Mint RE-SET tokens
Verified repair mints RE-SET tokens. They can’t be bought, sold, or traded, only earned through documented repair.
Step 05Redeem: erase LUs, or unlock perks
Spend tokens to reduce your debt score or unlock real benefits; transit passes, housing subsidies, green loans.
Building the world of RE-SET
PROCESS / 0105 STEPS
Research & method
Today’s Economy is Devouring Tomorrow’s
To contrast present day against an alternative future. The visual split showing where we are versus where we could go.
01/05
SELECT A STEP TO EXPLORE AUTO-ADVANCES
The Longlisting, the Conference, and some Trend Cards
Knowing my work was part of a list of global entries where it was seen, discussed and appreciated by some of the sharpest minds in the field was a real goldfish moment* for me.
*Find out what that means...
What This Taught Me About Designing Futures
Getting nerdy with method
Frameworks and structure help guide thinking, allowing speculative ideas to be grounded in signals, patterns, and logical progression to build a plausible future scenario.
Futures work needs many minds
Working solo was a challenge requirement so I didn’t get any feedback; which was a mistake. Diverse perspectives in futures thinking can help catch blind spots and challenge assumptions.
Design the failure modes
Including risks and uncertainties is part of the speculation and also of thoughtful design. It encourages conversation.
7.1Resources I used
Futures Studies Resources • Causal Layered Analysis (Sohail Inayatullah) • Arup’s 2050 Scenarios • DesignUp Futures Construction Kit
7.2What's Next
This project opened futures thinking as a core part of my practice. I’m exploring:
Participating in or running futures workshops with communities
Where foresight meets ethics in real projects
If you want to debate whether Legacy Debt is dystopian or necessary, or collaborate on futures work, let’s talk!