Beautiful Money ꕥ Introduction

I accidentally made an economy of tiny tokens and big love

Dayvan

and

~DYVN-M0S5~

Jul 04, 2025

In a single moment, I decided to take four days off from everything: the internet, reading, music, and conversation.

It was spacious and quiet, just what I was craving.

ღ I found myself drawn to creative things: picking & arranging flowers, singing to the cat, rearranging furniture & decor, grooming my hair & nails. Filled with long moments of simply staring into space.

But my fingers were itching to do something I couldn’t quite name. I rushed to my collection of papers: origami, thick Japanese paper, cutouts from old memorabilia. All carefully kept in a plastic sleeve from years of nomadic life. These felt like a special part of me.

Except one thing: a chunk of sheets filled with rows of empty white stickers. They lived there unapologetically for two years.

I bought them during one of my creative flurries: these will be perfect to play with! I’ll share them with people and we’ll make up a game… But as soon as they made it to my craft bag they went straight to the back. I lost interest.

Two years and several countries later, they looked perfect. I grabbed them and, without even thinking, began doodling on the 1cm x 2cm rectangles.

First decision: they wouldn’t all be the same. Some were just inky pen, others had watercolour, some had roses stuck on or miniature cards, even tiny stickers.

Next decision: each one deserved a frame. I lathered watercolour on thick strips of textured card, then delicately placed each little rectangle to create a satisfying effect.

What was all this for? No idea. It just felt wonderful.

꧁ As my fingers were working on tiny details, my mind wandered through chapters of my life: nomadic woes, family and friendships, career threads, lost memories emerging. Then I’d stop to sift through my craft bag for more material.

Two envelopes stood out, each the size of a business card. These had quietly travelled with me for 13 years!

I was using meaningful material, cut into tiny pieces, glued and framed to create… tokens? Ah. That’s what this was. Tiny tokens.

Once I figured that out, a sense of awe took over. Every now and then I’d pause to gaze at the growing collection, trying to decipher what the story was.

ღ Layers of aesthetic language began forming before my eyes. Some tokens could be grouped by background colour, others by design or material. Some defied categorisation entirely.

For example, the rose petals series — taken from a bouquet I created to remember my grandfather’s passing. I picked each petal and gently glued them onto pink and blue backgrounds, some petals had miniature maps stuck on them, others had ink doodles in morse code, flowers, and tear drops.

Sometimes the pen would run out of ink. Or all the horse stickers would finish. That’s when I realised: aesthetic develops just as much from limitation as it does from flow.

And not every token fitted into an aesthetic group; some were loners. I liked that.

Once I felt finished, I counted a total of 240 tokens. Counting was calming, so I kept going: 1290 blank stickers. 28 blue cowboy boot stickers, 24 white ones, 13 with my avatar. And my favourite golden double happiness stickers, 21 left of those. 18 rhinestone hearts, 22 blue tags, 17 squares of origami paper.

You get the idea.

I allowed myself to return to a sense of childhood, it was bliss. Imitating society with my make-believe economy. I began to realise these actually had real value to me. They connected layers of my kaleidoscopic life like a silk thread.

╭⊱ Moving so much and living minimally meant that anything I carried with me became inherently valuable. With every move, I’d shed more: clothes, objects, stuff I didn’t need.

So any item that made it through all the rounds of packing and reshuffling gained meaning.

Now that my heart had been profoundly cut, painted, and glued onto 240 tokens… what was I going to do with them?

Summer was approaching and it was time to socialise. Events started appearing in synchronicity, from workshop invites and collaborations to +1 tickets :) Água Será, Protocol Berg, Funding the Commons, NFC, Karneval de Kultur etc. Thank you ♡ to everyone who helped.
I whipped up an Artizen grant for Beautiful Money ꕥ Sacred Exchange and was warmly welcomed into the community. I’ve actually stuck around, which is really saying something.
The tokens needed game design mechanics…

ꕥ I imagined gifting a token to someone who touched my soul in some way, perhaps a kind gesture or insightful conversation. I’d invite them to send me a photo by email (maybe Telegram), and I’d respond with a poem or voice note reading their token like tarot.

The prompt was fairly simple, I imagined people would have their own instinct to do something else. Perhaps draw on the paper or stick something on it, or maybe keep in in their wallet, frame it, swap it with someone else, or gift it to a new friend.

The main gist of it being: make a move, and Dayvan may dance with you. I did plan intricate mechanics with activities, rituals, consults, and games. But those will have to wait till the next phase.

More importantly, something deep in my psyche was feeling seen as I simulated value flows. I could dance with presence, creativity, and care. The things I naturally and generously give.

As I write this now, I’m really grateful for what has happened so far. With every interaction I was simply present, absorbed in every person I talked to. I was also caring for my body and mind instead of trying to do everything at once.

And I made a lot of field notes, which I’ll be publishing on Twitter/X.

Good thing this is an ongoing living experiment. Leading up to this I’d been working on:

✧ imagining a new way to engage with the web: Aesthetic Realms

✧ exploring the link between craft and our digital identity: Telerealms (tactile theory)

✧ developing emotional and somatic ties to data: Cyber Somatics

✧ and now Beautiful Money, an emerging philosophy, perhaps

Stay tuned for updates on what happened, and also the next phase of Beautiful Money.

PS.

𝕘𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕚𝕖 #1: Support this work on Artizen and receive a special talisman (ends July 26, get yours quick) — these will play a role in future phases