Money is tokenized trust

Money is the most common collective hallucination in the modern world. Its primary function is to increase social cooperation and lower entropy, by streamlining interactions such as exchanges of goods and services.

Initial assumptions

Money starts to exist as a mental concept way before its material representation. Before owning coins, notes or bits in a computer, we alredy have an intrinsic representation (and expectation) of some specific value. That perceived value of an item or activity is different for each individual, based on education, current context, expectations, etc. Food is more valuable when you're hungry. Housing is less valuable if you already have 3 properties.

Money acts as a collective mental plasma for aligning these perceived values and expectations.

It does this in two ways:

first, it creates material representaions of the mental concept (metal coins, paper notes, bits in a distributed ledger)
and second, it tokenizes them - splitting into fungible, interchangeable units.

This process of tokenization makes the infinite differences in perception of value manageable: it's easier to move a needle on a scale with 100 equal steps, than to assess one big rock of gold. That's how the double coincidence of wants is solved.

As interactions in a community are unfolding and as community members are aligning their perceived values, a subtle shift happens in the perception of the money itself: the material, tokenized representation takes over the initial mental representation.

Because each specific interaction reinforces the expectations, more trust is added to the external system, so eventually the material representation frontruns the mental process for establishing value. We start to think in terms of dollars and Bitcoins, not in terms of food, housing, clothing, performing or receiving specific services.

Ironically, the more a specific type of money is aligned with our mental expectations, the faster it frontruns them, replacing the internal process with external material units.

This back and forth process is never ending. We are continually assessing our needs and ascribing value to what we get or give, and we are using various types of material tokenized trust to represent them.

The most important consequence of this is that if enough trust is placed on the material, tokenized layer, modifying that layer will modify the value itself.

Remmeber that each individual has different perceptions of value based on education, context, etc? Well, if the collective hallucination is strong enough, these are overwritten by the collective representation, and instantly actualized in the mental plasma uniting all members of the community.

In a balanced, healthy community, whoever controls the material, tokenized layer of the collective hallucination (usually the community leaders, the "government") ends up controlling the mental represenation of value too.

From that moment on, any modification of the external layer will end up either decreasing, or increasing trust too. Most common action taken on the external layer is supply manipulation (increasing / decreasig the number of tokens in circulation).

For instance, if the material layer is destabilized by artbitrarily printing new tokens, trust starts migrating back into the mental level, and out of the tokenized suppport. Slowly, the collective mental plasma is not as conducive as it used to be, so new alternatives are researched. New forms of material, tokenized support are created.

Similarly, if the external layer is modified by verifiably limiting the token supply, the trust in the material layer increases and the mental representation subsides. We start to take for granted that some token carries more value, simply because more people seem to trust it.

Consequences

The right to soft fork

If the back and forth between the mental representation and its material, tokenized support is never ending, it means money soft forks are inevitable.

USD is a soft fork of the GBP, as more trust started to migrate from an old country to a new one. EUR is a soft fork of a few local currencies, because more trust started to migrate from those local communities to the newly established federation / community.

Any ecosystem will soft fork at some point, if the discrepancy in trust between the mental representation and the tokenized support is too big to handle for a majority of stakeholders.

As such, the AtomeOne consistution should implement the fundamental right to soft fork.

The primary value is trust

With the maturation of any ecosystem comes the inevitable trust migration from mental representations of value to material tokens. The trust loop acts as a self-fulfilling propehcy, and eventually makes the tokenized support the default level of value.

But too much reliance on material support creates a governance vulenrability. Leaders controlling the token creation and supply can become corrupt, or they can be disconnected from the main goals of the community they lead.

Thus, the fundamental layer of any thriving ecosystem is not its economical power, which can be (and almost always is) corrupted at the material level, but the measurable level of trust in its leaders / governance. If trust is there, it will eventually migrate into tokens too. If trust is dwindling, even if the tokens are "valuable" now, they will lose power as trust fades away.

As such, AtomOne consitution should primarily enforce trust (in its vision, processes and execution) over the material, tokenized layer. Trust should be constantly measured and assessed and it should be considered the default level of value, regardless of the actual market value of the tokens in which it may migrate.

Prioritizing trust at the governance level, coupled with the right to soft fork may - and it probably will - result not in a monolithic AtomOne ecosystem, but in a constellation of autonomous entities, each carrying various levels of the initial AtomOne DNA. AtomOne constitution should guarantee their right to existence.

Tell me you're well educated, without telling me you're well educated Not only do I agree, I am impressed by how well you delivered your point.

Trust is of the utmost importance because it is hopefully a value that is shared amongst the community that gathers around Atom1.

As such, the AtomeOne consistution should implement the fundamental right to soft fork.

Please help define this. There is already a starting point here:

https://github.com/atomone-hub/genesis/blob/main/CONSTITUTION.md#article-2c-air-drops-and-forks

But too much reliance on material support creates a governance vulenrability

Can we be more precise and distinguish between tokenized and physical/material? It's confusing because tokens are not material, they are indeed "dematerial". When you represent something from the physical world as a digital asset, it has become "dematerialized". The dollar "dematerialized" gold. Now the token "dematerialized" the dollar and other instruments.

Too much reliance on physical gold doesn't create governance vulnerability, well, if you have that much gold then even the government cannot protect you. But they can protect you from theft to a degree.

Too much reliance on exchange traded stock does depend on the SEC, government, FED, etc.

And yes too much reliance on even $phATOM1 would create reliance on $ATOM1. But also there is the hypothesis that "recovery will happen if enough people need it, and the software matures, and we practice and live and breath recovery". This trust comes from the ecosystem of tooling. We aren't there yet but we can complete this over time.

AtomOne consitution should primarily enforce trust (in its vision, processes and execution) over the material, tokenized layer.

README.md has a little about this, the need to separate what is core from what is a consumer chain. And all consumer chains/shards should have some governance body, and how AtomOne adheres to the wishes of the consumer chain/shard's governance body (and also how it doesn't and cannot due to regulations or moral objections) and if many cases how AtomOne doesn't intervene; all contribute to trust; and the way we build trust is also dependent on how intuitive, simple, complete, consistent the constitution+bylaws are that AtomOne binds itself to and how well it follows them.

Over time there will always be generational splits due to, well, the generational gap that tends to repeat, but the old chains that survive and stay true to their constitution will have the greater value by virtue of having the greatest reputation proven over time.

Trust should be constantly measured and assessed and it should be considered the default level of value, regardless of the actual market value of the tokens in which it may migrate.

Isn't it already measured by market cap of $ATOM1? What else?

The post is rich in content. My goal now is to try to quantify the trust with practical examples and what it should be, filtering it with my ideas. I'm thinking out loud.

Money is tokenized trust

Can we quantify trust? In the hub, how? I think about this a lot of time. Can marketcap be a quantitative measure of trust? I think no, but marketcap is the amount of strength of tokenization value. It is an expectation, a quantified measure of the trust you will be able to achieve. If I am worth $100, will anyone ever trust me with the security of $ 10000000 ? Who has 10000000 dollars how much is he willing to spend for its security ?

Imagine having to physically move money from point A to point B. Imagine that you cannot move this money yourself but you have to rely on someone. Based on what criteria would you choose this person ? How much would you to pay him/her ? Would this person's trust be comparable to the material representation of the tokenized value you entrust to him or her ?

Would the city, the route to be taken, the people met, change the amount of trust that this person for you must reflect ?

If the city was the safest in the world, if the road to be traveled was the smoothest and most guarded, if the people encountered are all in favor of transfer , would it still matter so much in this case who moves your money ? And in opposite condition where the delivery man is the only reliable ?

My thinking on atom has always been to monetize trust:

[ ✓] with the concept of IBC we can securely send the token from a chain 1 to a chain 2 into the hub
[ ✓] with the concept of mesh security we can share the security of multiple chains resulting in a single high reliable entity.
[ ✓] with the concept of ICS we can lending our trust to other entities.

But, it is all ?

[ ] Imagine if a blockchain with a safety net through mesh, IBC and ICS, created a CCC cross-chain communication protocol by lending our trust to other entities for send tokens from a point A to a point B ? That acts like IBC but with any blockchain external to the hub into the world.
[ ] Imagine a chain that is a liquid stake of itself and other chains, but not only that, imagine a chain that has begun to be so secure and trusting that it has given rise to the very concept of wallets, pushing people to store money on it in the same way as a bank deposit.
[ ] Imagine a blockchain that can split into a soft fork, coexisting and helping themselves, lending our trust for multiple ICSs or validating blocks from other blockchains into the internet's blockchain, rewarding the stakers with all type of assets which traveling on it.

Cosmos could embody the symbol of trust and provide trust in a revolutionary way, on a totally different scale, monetizing it becoming the internet of blockchain and enabling it to act as a bridge and safe place for all blockchains without wrapped tokens, where all kinds of fees and money are accepted and incentivized because of its security, security that no one else could ever offer, by embodying the very concept of trust, the tokenized asset agnostic.

ATOM's goal was the monetization of the trust by embodying it, not the scarcity of the token, and that is why now we need ATOM1, ATOM is not enough, the project is too ambitious.

Now, the question is, what part of the gear does ATOM1 want to become? Will it become the safe city? The safe street? The people who bring money from point A to point B? The final point B itself?

I love this thread, but money as we know it these days is the instrument used for around three centuries in its current iteration to make a select few staggeringly 'wealthy' and to enable them to completely manipulate the collective via it's tentacular manipulations of the media etc. I'm all for getting away from the need to trust anything. I guess that's why I like the idea of operating in a trustless environment. An unimpeachable safe haven where trust is not sought or given.

atomone-hub / genesis