Money is a universal equivalent of value, an intermediary through which value can be quantified, stored, and exchanged. We believe that:
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Money must be self-sovereign. Value arises from the interplay of production and consumption, capability and utility, the will to give and the will to take. For universal equivalence to be achieved, all participants in the market of value must have the fullest possible control over the holding and exchange of monetary assets.
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Money must be unclonable. An implementation of money must make holdings verifiable and transfers unequivocal. The introduction of new monetary assets must be restricted to a well-defined minting process, agreed upon by holders and determining the quantification of value through those assets.
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Money must be self-custodial. An implementation of money must not require — but may permit — delegation of custody to parties other than the holders of the monetary assets.
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Money must be transferable, both locally and across communication networks. An implementation of money must not rely on access to such networks, but must be compatible with them, to forego the limitations that bind our bodies and their local interactions.
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Money must be transactable, peer-to-peer, privately and undeniably. An implementation of monetary transactions must not require intermediaries — possibly other than untrusted communication networks ― nor must it require the revelation or recording of information about a transaction to parties beyond those directly involved.
Over the centuries, money has taken many forms: from chattels, through minted coins, to modern banknotes, each one a compromise between commercial convenience and resistance to forgery, finely tuned to the trading customs and technological capabilities of its age. But it is on this very altar of convenience that monetary sovereignty would slowly be sacrificed. With the growth of global commerce and banking systems, pay-to-bearer instruments traded custody and privacy for transferability. In the era of electronic commerce, money has been reduced to a simulacrum of its former self, a mere obligation by a counterparty to perform bookkeeping functions.
The advent of decentralised ledgers — based on cryptographic attestation and distributed consensus — claims to have restored the peer-to-peer nature of monetary exchanges. Despite their enormous success, we believe the fullest promise of digital money is yet to be met. Regardless of the technical specifics, regardless of the design of incentives, the requirement of ledger-level consensus on the ordering and inclusion of peer-to-peer transactions stands in contrast to the privacy and undeniability that should ultimately characterise them.
We believe the quantum world can be harnessed to realize our vision: Quantum Money — unclonable by the laws of physics. Digital money, truly sovereign, truly peer-to-peer. Money which you can hold in the palm of your hand and transact across the stars. Money worthy of the age of quantum information.