DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO: metabolic currency to distribute existence and protect the biome

When I imagine DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO, I’m not thinking of “just another digital money”.

I’m thinking of something closer to this:

every day, without bureaucracy and without humiliation,
each person in Chile wakes up with a minimum dose of existence
already credited in their digital wallet.

Not as charity.
Not as favour from a politician.
But as a constitutional right of metabolism.

I call this dose metabolic currency:

• it guarantees food, transport, basic digital access and time to breathe;
  
  

• it frees the nervous system from permanent survival panic;
  
  

• it ties the value of money to the health of local biomes, not to the mood of the 01s’ financial markets.
  
  

Technically, it’s a retail CBDC – a digital currency issued by the Central Bank,
but with a very specific purpose:

to distribute existence and protect the biome,
not to feed speculative cycles.

The focus I want to light

Among all debates on CBDCs, banking and technology, I choose one focus:

when the basic flow of money is guaranteed,
brains come out of scarcity mode and can think, feel and decide better.

DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO is my proposal to stabilise this flow
as a daily, constitutional, metabolic right.

From CBDC to metabolic currency

Central banks around the world are discussing retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs):

• digital forms of central bank money for everyday use;
  
  

• stored in wallets or accounts accessible to households and firms;
  
  

• complementing, not necessarily replacing, cash.
  
  

Most of these debates focus on:

• payment efficiency and resilience,
  
  

• financial stability,
  
  

• competition with banks and Big Tech,
  
  

• privacy vs. anti–money laundering.
  
  

Some studies already explore how CBDCs could improve the delivery of social safety nets,
making transfers faster and more targeted, especially in emergencies.

DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO goes one step further:

• it is not only a channel for existing social programmes;
  
  

• it is a new layer of money, created specifically to guarantee
  a daily basic metabolic income disconnected from debt and speculation.
  
  

In my vision:

• the Banco Central de Chile issues DREX CIDADÃO directly to citizens;
  
  

• its value is tied to local cost of existence (food, transport, energy, digital access);
  
  

• it circulates preferentially in local, low-carbon, biocentric economies
  (family agriculture, care work, culture, repair, education).
  
  

Why metabolism matters: poverty, scarcity and the brain

Neuroscience and behavioural economics have been warning for some time:

poverty is not only a lack of money;
it is a cognitive and emotional tax imposed on the brain.

The classic study “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function” showed that:

• when people are under financial strain,
  their cognitive performance drops significantly;
  
  

• worrying about money consumes mental resources,
  leaving less capacity for planning, control and problem-solving.
  
  

In other words:

• scarcity mode narrows attention to immediate problems;
  
  

• long-term thinking, democracy and learning suffer.
  
  

Randomised trials in Kenya with unconditional cash transfers found that:

• households receiving cash experienced improvements in
  psychological well-being and reductions in the stress hormone cortisol;
  
  

• the effects extended to better economic security and family dynamics.
  
  

Experiments with basic income in Finland showed that:

• recipients reported higher life satisfaction,
  less mental strain, and better perceived health,
  even without large effects on employment.
  
  

Taken together, these findings support a simple intuition:

when existence is not at permanent risk,
the brain can exit emergency mode
and enter zones of learning, cooperation and creativity.

DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO is built exactly on this metabolic insight.

How I imagine DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO in practice

In my proposal, DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO would have some key features:

1. Daily, universal and individual
   
   

• every Chilean citizen receives a daily credit of DREX,
  enough to cover a basic basket of existence over the month;
  
  

• no application forms, no conditions, no stigma.
  
  

2. Zero interest, non-hoardable above a threshold
   
   

• DREX is created without interest – it is not a debt to be paid back;
  
  

• above a certain balance, it starts to lose value or is converted into other instruments,
  preventing hoarding and speculation.
  
  

3. Biome-linked and municipalised
   
   

• part of DREX issuance is indexed to biome indicators
  (water, forests, air quality, biodiversity);
  
  

• municipalities receive DREX quotas proportional to their role in protecting biomes,
  reinforcing local regenerative projects.
  
  

4. Integrated with, but separate from, the financial market
   
   

• banks and fintechs can build services on top of DREX,
  but cannot create it or charge interest on it;
  
  

• speculative finance remains in another layer,
  where risk and profit are not allowed to threaten existence flows.
  
  

The metaphor I use is biological:

DREX CIDADÃO is like oxygen and glucose in the blood –
a basal, non-negotiable flow.

The rest of the economy can play with “muscles”,
but without strangling organs and cells.

DREX, stress and democratic quality

If we connect this to my zones:

• Zone 1 – normal tensions of life;
  
  

• Zone 2 – deep focus, fruição, creativity;
  
  

• Zone 3 – capture by ideology, fear, exploitation;
  
  

DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO is designed to:

• pull people out of Zone 3, where debt and survival dominate;
  
  

• stabilise Zone 1 with less panic;
  
  

• open more space for Zone 2 experiences:
  studying, caring, creating, participating in democracy.
  
  

Evidence from cash transfer and basic income studies suggests:

• when basic security improves,
  people tend to show better mental health,
  less stress and more perceived autonomy;
  
  

• there is no explosion of “laziness”; instead, there is
  more flexibility to seek decent work and invest in education or small businesses.
  
  

From a neural perspective:

DREX CIDADÃO is not only an economic tool;
it is a public policy of stress reduction at population scale,
protecting prefrontal function, learning and empathy.

Better brains, less chronic stress = better democracy.

Biome protection built into money

There is another layer: the biome.

Today, money flows freely to:

• destroy forests,
  
  

• pollute rivers,
  
  

• heat the planet.
  
  

DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO reverses the logic:

• a portion of DREX is issued only when biome indicators improve or remain healthy;
  
  

• municipalities and communities that protect water, soil and biodiversity
  receive more DREX quotas to distribute locally;
  
  

• citizens see, in their own wallets, that taking care of the biome increases metabolic security.
  
  

Instead of “green finance” as a niche,
DREX CIDADÃO makes biocentric metabolism the core of national currency.

Draft constitutional article (in Spanish)

Artículo X – DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO como moneda metabólica de existencia

1. El Estado reconocerá el derecho de todas las personas nacionales a un flujo diario mínimo de moneda metabólica digital, denominada DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO, emitida por el Banco Central con el fin de garantizar las condiciones materiales básicas de existencia, de conformidad con el principio de Bienestar Metabólico y de protección de los biomas.
   
   

2. El DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO será de curso legal para el pago de bienes y servicios esenciales y se emitirá sin interés, sin originar deudas para las personas beneficiarias. La ley establecerá mecanismos para evitar la acumulación especulativa de saldos y promover su circulación en economías locales de bajo impacto ecológico.
   
   

3. Una proporción de la emisión de DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO se vinculará a indicadores de salud ecológica de los biomas y al desempeño de los municipios en la protección de aguas, suelos, bosques y biodiversidad, generando cuotas adicionales de DREX para las comunidades que contribuyan efectivamente a dicha protección.
   
   

4. El diseño y la gestión del DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO asegurarán la interoperabilidad con otros medios de pago, resguardando la estabilidad financiera y la privacidad de las personas, y evitando la captura del sistema por intereses privados o por el 0,1% más rico de la población.
   
   

5. La ley podrá establecer modalidades de extensión del DREX a personas migrantes y a acuerdos regionales de ciudadanía metabólica, siempre que se respeten los principios de justicia climática, solidaridad internacional y soberanía democrática de los pueblos.
   
   

Suggested references (up to 8, with comments – ≥3 neuroscientific / behavioural)

1. Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function.” Science.
   Shows experimentally that financial scarcity reduces cognitive performance, supporting the idea that chronic money worries consume mental bandwidth and harm decision-making.
   
   

2. Haushofer, J., & Shapiro, J. (2016). “The Short-Term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor.” Quarterly Journal of Economics.
   Randomized trial in Kenya showing that unconditional cash transfers improve consumption, psychological well-being and reduce cortisol (a stress biomarker). It backs the claim that stable cash flows act on metabolism and stress.
   
   

3. Zimmerman, A. et al. (2021). “The impact of cash transfers on mental health in children and young people in low- and middle-income countries.” BMJ Global Health.
   Systematic review suggesting that cash transfers tend to have positive effects on some mental health outcomes and no negative effects for young people.
   
   

4. Magnuson, K. A. et al. (2025). “Effects of unconditional cash transfers on family processes and children’s early environments.” Nature Communications.
   Examines how unconditional cash transfers affect economic hardship and family processes linked to child development, reinforcing the role of income stability in early-life environments.
   
   

5. Hiilamo, A. et al. (2025). “Heterogeneous effects of the Finnish partial basic income experiment on mental well-being.” Journal of Public Economics.
   Finds reductions in mental strain and improvements in well-being among participants in Finland’s basic income trial, showing how unconditional income can relieve psychological pressure.
   
   

6. Haushofer, J., & Fehr, E. (2014). “On the psychology of poverty.” Science.
   Reviews mechanisms linking poverty to stress, negative affect and cognitive load, tying economic conditions directly to psychological and behavioural outcomes.
   
   

7. Auer, R., Cornelli, G., & Frost, J. (2020). “The technology of retail central bank digital currency.” BIS Quarterly Review.
   Outlines technological design considerations for retail CBDCs, providing a technical backdrop for thinking about DREX CIDADÃO as a specific CBDC architecture.
   
   

8. Infante, S. et al. (2023). “Retail Central Bank Digital Currencies: Implications for Banking and Financial Stability.” Federal Reserve FEDS Discussion Paper.
   Analyzes how retail CBDCs might affect banking and stability, useful for framing DREX CIDADÃO as a carefully designed layer that coexists with, but does not destabilize, the existing financial system.