The story so far: you now have a digital universe (a network-of-networks) and you have digital citizens (identities) and digital organizations (networks).
The next question about worlds: how to create value in a universe?
Defining Value
Value is a form of energy. It is called value because it involves a process of evaluation:
Evaluator uses Evaluation determines Value
Understanding this triad is the key to unlocking value, no pun intended.
This is a description of the process. Step one: an entity beholds something that is being offered by another entity. Step two: if the beholder finds the offer useful, if they feel that they would be better off accepting the offer, the beholder is agreeing that there is value in the offered item or service. There may be a step three: negotiating a price and actuating the exchange.
Note that this ultimately means that a value creator comes into being whenever someone perceives value in an offer and then subsequently buys into it. For clarity: the point is that value can be recognized when a purchase occurs.
In simpler terms: a purchase is the only sign of value, and the exchange of the item or service for some form of payment or credit is the value creation process.
Creating Value
Now that we understand what value is, abstract as it is when speaking about it, it is very specific in all situations. This is why anyone can create value for anyone else in very specific ways. The process of value creation, as described above, needs an entity to recognize the value of the creation on offer. Indeed, the patron gives value to the creator in a naturally interdependent relationship. And patrons are defined by their purchases aka patronage.
Exchanging Value
What we now have is a world within which citizens or citizen entities can create value for each other, and can make offers to each other, as well as effect exchanges if they see value in each other's offers. This means exchanging is a key component of value, and without the ability to exchange, purchases can not happen, which means value can not be recognized.
Being able to effect exchange is value.
Transferring Value
Exchange is value, but how to effect an exchange? What are the components of exchanges?
To effect an exchange, we need a way to keep track of what we're exchanging and with who. We already know how to identify counter parties, so all we need is a general asset ledger of sorts where individual accounts record who has what and who exchanged what with who.
Of course, now the question becomes: how to store or record value?
Storing Value
As they say, if you don't have money, you have money problems. If you have money, then also you have money problems. It is the same with value, because value is money.
But value is the actual experience had or products or services consumed, and such actual value can not be stored. What can be stored is something that can later be exchanged for the actual value, and this forms the basis of credit. So each identity has an account in the books, these accounts hold what each entity owns. Money becomes a form of credit that can be recorded in the same book of accounts, or general asset ledger, or just ledger.
This means that a ledger is inseparable from value creation, because transferring and storing value are inseparable from value creation.
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