- Use Cases for Donbass, Ukraine
- Use Cases for Palestine
- Scenario Suite for Rural China with Exonomy Enhancements
- What are Exonomy's Mechanisms for Autonomously Decentralized Rural Development
- Ayurveda Inspires the Exonomy's Self Awareness
- Integrated Dashboard: A Holistic View of Exonomic Health
- Visualizing Fairness, Trust, and Quality
- The Personality and Psychology of the Exonomy
Exonomy is a fully peer-to-peer (P2P), serverless platform built to redefine how people create, share, and trade personal vouchers. By harnessing the power of IPFS and OrbitDB, Exonomy ensures that users can transact securely, privately, and autonomously. Whether buying, selling, or simply exchanging these digital “IOUs” for products or services, Exonomy breaks down traditional barriers by giving users full control over their own credit-like tokens, fostering an environment where creativity, collaboration, and community-driven commerce thrive.
- Decentralization - No central servers or intermediaries—every user is their own node, owning both their data and their transactions.
- Flexibility & Inclusivity - Vouchers are an alternative to existing currencies, not a replacement. Users can choose from traditional payment systems (Stripe, PayPal, etc.) or crypto services to move real money in or out.
- Autonomy & Privacy - Each user sets their own rules. They can opt in to regulatory/KYC measures, manage whether vouchers are resold, and choose private or public sharing of personal data—all with strong encryption via OrbitDB/IPFS.
- Social Interaction - By turning wallets into interactive feeds, Exonomy blends social media elements with commerce—people can like, comment on, and share published vouchers, creating organic engagement around products and services.
- Open-Ended Growth - Exonomy is designed to evolve with user needs, supporting new payment APIs or SDKs as they emerge, and maximizing user autonomy at every step.
The following scenarios elaborate on various use cases to highlight how Exonomy facilitates decentralized economies.
App Overview:
Exonomy empowers individuals in constrained economic conditions to trade skills, products, and services through a decentralized voucher system. These vouchers act as personalized credit, enabling barter and collaboration without the need for cash or traditional banking.
- Situation: Yulia runs a small salon in her home. Her clients, struggling with cash shortages, cannot afford her services regularly.
- Voucher Example:
- Yulia creates vouchers for haircuts, styling, or coloring services.
- Value: Each voucher represents a specific service (e.g., one haircut = 200 UAH equivalent).
- Use Case:
- Yulia gives a voucher to Ivan (mechanic) in exchange for car repairs.
- Ivan uses the haircut voucher for his wife.
- Other neighbors who need haircuts buy Yulia’s vouchers using their own vouchers for products or services.
- Situation: Ivan owns a small garage and has spare parts but struggles to attract customers who can pay cash.
- Voucher Example:
- Ivan creates vouchers for oil changes, tire replacements, or general car maintenance.
- Value: One voucher for tire replacement = 500 UAH equivalent.
- Use Case:
- Ivan exchanges a voucher for pizza delivery from Petro (pizza shop owner).
- Petro uses Ivan’s voucher to repair his scooter used for deliveries.
- Ivan’s vouchers circulate as locals require mechanical work.
- Situation: Petro’s pizzeria is still operational, but most customers cannot afford to pay in cash due to the collapsing currency.
- Voucher Example:
- Petro creates vouchers for pizzas, sides, or drinks.
- Value: One large pizza voucher = 300 UAH equivalent.
- Use Case:
- Petro exchanges a pizza voucher with Sofiya (gardener) for fresh vegetables.
- Sofiya uses the pizza voucher to feed her family or trades it for another service, like a haircut.
- Petro's vouchers keep circulating, driving more business back to him.
- Situation: Sofiya grows vegetables and herbs in her backyard. She has a surplus but struggles to sell due to the lack of cash among locals.
- Voucher Example:
- Sofiya creates vouchers for specific produce bundles (e.g., 2 kg of tomatoes + 1 kg of herbs = 150 UAH equivalent).
- Use Case:
- Sofiya trades a produce voucher with Mykola (butcher) for meat.
- Mykola uses the produce voucher to buy pizza from Petro.
- The community enjoys fresh food without needing cash.
- Situation: Mykola processes meat but has fewer customers due to the economic collapse. His products are in demand, but cash is scarce.
- Voucher Example:
- Mykola creates vouchers for specific cuts of meat (e.g., 1 kg of beef = 400 UAH equivalent).
- Use Case:
- Mykola trades a meat voucher with Yulia for haircuts for his family.
- Yulia uses the meat voucher to buy pizza from Petro or vegetables from Sofiya.
- Mykola’s vouchers become a valuable medium of exchange.
In the examples above, the local currency was used only to show a realistic economy in which vouchers of different values are easily created for specific transactions, on demand. It might serve the interests of the voucher publisher, however, to establish the base currency of a voucher on the Euro or USD currency. Prevailing conversion rates show the UAH value, which would change according to the local inflation rate, thereby protecting voucher publishers from the devaluation of their products and services. Any currency can be used to display the value of the voucher and any other currency can be used to let the voucher publisher cash out in case of a sale rather than a barter.
- Barter-Style Transactions:
Each individual trades their skills or goods using vouchers, bypassing the need for cash, rendering cash as merely an option. - Economic Circulation:
Vouchers keep circulating, enabling individuals to access products and services they otherwise couldn’t afford. - Trust-Based System:
Vouchers act as personalized credit, with trust reinforced by local familiarity and Exonomy’s built-in metrics.
- Economic Activity Revitalized: The barter-sphere ensures people remain productive and engaged, even in extreme conditions.
- Local Value Retention: Services and goods remain within the community, reducing reliance on unstable external currencies.
- Decentralized Resilience: The P2P nature of Exonomy ensures no reliance on internet connectivity or centralized servers, ideal for conflict zones.
Through Exonomy, Yulia, Ivan, Petro, Sofiya, and Mykola transform their skills and products into a vibrant, trust-based economy, proving that economic activity doesn’t require cash—it requires collaboration.
App Overview:
Exonomy provides a decentralized platform to enable economic activity in constrained environments. In Palestine, where access to cash, banking, and international financial systems is often limited, Exonomy empowers individuals to trade skills, goods, and services using vouchers as a form of personalized credit. These vouchers represent tangible value and allow for collaboration, trust-building, and mutual support.
- Situation: Samir is a contractor in Jenin who builds and repairs homes. Many families need his services but lack the cash to pay.
- Voucher Example:
- Samir issues vouchers for specific tasks like "Wall Repair" (300 ILS equivalent) or "Roof Construction" (1,500 ILS equivalent).
- Use Case:
- Samir trades a roof repair voucher with Amal (baker) for bread to feed his workers.
- Amal redeems the voucher when her home requires repairs.
- Samir’s vouchers circulate in the community, increasing his work opportunities.
- Situation: Nabil drives a taxi but finds that passengers often struggle to pay due to limited cash availability.
- Voucher Example:
- Nabil creates vouchers for specific routes (e.g., Jenin to Ramallah = 100 ILS equivalent).
- Use Case:
- Nabil trades a ride voucher with Layla (elementary school teacher) for tutoring his children.
- Layla uses the ride voucher to visit her family in Ramallah.
- Nabil’s vouchers gain traction as a practical medium for local travel.
- Situation: Amal owns a bakery that supplies bread and pastries. Cash shortages reduce her sales, but her products remain in high demand.
- Voucher Example:
- Amal issues vouchers for bread bundles (50 ILS equivalent) or pastries (20 ILS equivalent).
- Use Case:
- Amal trades bread vouchers with Fadi (electrician) to repair her bakery’s wiring.
- Fadi uses the bread vouchers to feed his family or trades them with others.
- Amal’s vouchers create consistent demand for her bakery’s goods.
- Situation: Fadi provides electrical services but finds clients unable to pay in cash.
- Voucher Example:
- Fadi issues vouchers for specific services like "Light Fixture Installation" (200 ILS equivalent) or "Circuit Repair" (300 ILS equivalent).
- Use Case:
- Fadi trades an installation voucher with Layla for tutoring his niece.
- Layla uses the voucher when her school needs electrical repairs.
- Fadi’s vouchers circulate, bringing him more work and building trust in the community.
- Fadi pays Layla for tutoring his daughter with Amal's breadbasket voucher that he earned for repairing her wires.
- Situation: Layla teaches children in her neighborhood but struggles to earn enough to support her own family.
- Voucher Example:
- Layla creates vouchers for private tutoring sessions (150 ILS equivalent).
- Use Case:
- Layla trades tutoring vouchers with Samir for home repairs.
- Samir’s children redeem the tutoring vouchers to improve their grades.
- Layla’s vouchers help her expand her services and earn valuable goods in return.
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Situation:
- Mamoun, a Palestinian expatriate in Berlin, introduces Jürgen, his Catholic neighbor, to Exonomy.
- Jürgen learns that by purchasing vouchers from Mamoun’s relatives in Jenin, he can support their local economy directly without relying on fundraising organizations.
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Voucher Example:
- Jürgen buys a bread voucher from Amal (50 ILS equivalent).
- Jürgen stores it in his Exonomy wallet, where his Palestinian flag avatar signals his solidarity.
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Use Case:
- Amal’s cousin, Fadi, makes an offer to buy Jürgen’s voucher at a 20% discount.
- Instead of selling it, Jürgen donates the voucher to Fadi for free.
- This action:
- Sends cash to Amal when Jürgen buys the voucher.
- Enables Fadi to access bread from Amal without cash.
- Multiplies the voucher’s value by creating a new transaction and building trust.
- Jürgen shares his experience with his church, inspiring the congregation to join Exonomy and support other communities in Jenin.
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Direct Support from Abroad:
- Individuals like Jürgen use Exonomy to provide targeted financial support that doesn't require trusting employees of fund-raising NGOs who typically have no contact whatsoever with those on whose behalf they are raising funds. By bypassing intermediaries, Exonomists like Jürgen ensure not only that every penny of their money directly impacts the local economy, they also engage on a far more personal level with their beneficieries and build lasting relationships.
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Trust and Community Building:
- Vouchers circulate within the community, reinforcing relationships and trust among businesses. Vouchers also function as free advertising and as instruments that promote trust through referrals.
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Decentralized Empowerment:
- Exonomy operates independently of traditional financial systems, offering resilience in economically constrained regions.
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Market Visibility:
- The optionally transparent Exonomy wallet serves as a marketplace and social media platform, showcasing vouchers and promoting collaboration.
- Economic Inclusion: Exonomy enables individuals to participate in the economy despite cash shortages.
- Localized Value Creation: Products and services define value, replacing the dependency on cash.
- Humanitarian Support: Vouchers empower both local and international users to contribute meaningfully.
- Cultural Exchange: Platforms like Exonomy build bridges between communities, fostering understanding and cooperation.
Through Exonomy, Samir, Nabil, Amal, Fadi, Layla, and Jürgen collaborate to create a sustainable barter economy, transforming constraints into opportunities.
Exonomy facilitates a decentralized economy in rural China by enabling the exchange of vouchers for goods, services, and projects. This suite highlights how Exonomy integrates with rural cultural norms, enhances project management, and builds sustainable value chains, launched by inspiration from an international testimonial.
- Executive in Hangzhou: A young professional seeking to improve educational opportunities in his home village.
- Village Carpenter: Constructs homes and community structures like schools.
- Local Farmer: Supplies food and raw materials to the community.
- Village Schoolteacher: Teaches children and adults while needing access to educational materials.
- Tailor: Creates garments and textile products.
- Traveling Laborer: Comes from a nearby town to help build the school.
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Launching the Idea
- The executive in Hangzhou reads a testimonial in the Exonomy app about Jürgen’s humanitarian voucher donations in Jenin. Inspired, he envisions a similar initiative to help build a school in his village.
- He uses Exonomy's Exocracy page to initiate the "Village School Construction" project, defining a vision / scope statement along with high level key tasks like hiring laborers, sourcing materials, and managing logistics. He then continues to add more details hierarchically by branching each task into small subtasks that address more granular requirements and needs.
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Defining Project Tasks and Compensation
- The executive adds tasks like "Lay Foundation" or "Transport Materials" to the project, specifying compensation in vouchers for local goods/services or cash via WeChat.
- Exonomists interested in this school building project see the hierarchichally organized tasks and attach their own vouchers to any level of the tasks structure. Doing so allows project managers to use their discretion when allocating compensation to subtasks. Tasks will have many vouchers attached to them as an offer for compensation and laborers will have the freedom to select the voucher that most satisfies their desires.
- Tasks to which vouchers have not been allocated can always be seen as invitations to volunteer and perform the work gratis until vouchers come along. This can also be established intentionally by simply leaving the compensation value at zero.
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Voucher Circulation and Multi-Value-Chain Transactions
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A consortium of local farmers coordinates amongst its own member farms the publishing of food vouchers to supply meals for laborers. The farmers can provide the ingredients including produce like grains, fruits and vegetables, locally sourced eggs and milk, but they can't make meals and sandwiches. So, in cooperation with the project manager of the project, they coopt and compensate some local neighborhood restaurants with additional vouchers for the many and diverse products from their already collectivized farming community. Restaurants are recruited into the school building project to process food for the laborers and are compensated with the raw materials they need. In this way, the superfluous medium of money is functionally circumvented, despite money being used merely to quantify the equity of the exchange of vouchers that, more directly than money, represent the essentially organic relationship between the restaurants and the farmers.
This specific use case element was inspired by the work of Tadese Meskela, the General Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU) stablished in 1999 in Ethiopia, a world renowned proponent of fair trade who speaks publicly in support of it around the world. He was featured in the documentary "Black Gold," which explores the links between multinational coffee corporations and the poverty that plagues many of Ethiopia's coffee growers. Under his leadership, the OCFCU, which comprises numerous member cooperatives representing over 557,186 household farmers throughout the Harar and surrounding regions in Ethiopia, has facilitated the construction of schools, health centers, and clean water supply stations. On top of this, he has organized, as well, the return of dividends to his member farmers.
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Traveling laborers redeem food vouchers during the project, using them also to pay the tailor for mended clothes.
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Exonomy's multi-link value chain protocol ensures vouchers flow seamlessly between stakeholders, connecting the dots to fulfill various and even unanticipated needs with spontaneous fluidity.
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Using the Voucher Market
- Villagers and laborers use Exonomy to access the voucher market that consolidates all published vouchers into an accessible interface providing powerful search capabilities that facilitate finding specific tasks to which a desired voucher has already been allocated.
- A laborer can even use Exocracy to search the project for tasks based on the combined criteria of skill requirments and compensating voucher offerings in order to zoom in on the "sweet spot" tasks that offer the laborer the biggest bang for the buck.
- Exonomists can also manage their own "wish list" of vouchers they hope to acquire and this list can be used to automatically recommend tasks based on categories similar to those referenced by vouchers in the wish list.
- The laborer can also trade vouchers earned for building work to acquire services like teaching assistance for his children or fresh produce from the farmer.
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Exocracy’s Transparency and Participation
- Villagers join the school project through Exocracy, contributing to tasks as volunteers or paid participants. Volunteering can also be a way to eventually become paid when laborers request to submit a credit voucher by completing a task without requiring compensation. Some tasks might not be crowdfunded as quickly as others. By offering labor to complete a task before it is crowdfunded by compensatory vouchers being attached to it, laborers motivate crowdfunding by showing that the task was performed in good faith.
- The carpenter offers a 20% discount for vouchers purchased in advance, creating an incentive for stakeholders to invest early.
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Integrating External Payment Platforms
- Urban supporters, like the executive’s colleagues in Hangzhou, use WeChat to purchase vouchers directly through Exonomy.
- The integration expands the network of participants, providing cash flow to the project while keeping voucher value circulating within the community.
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Educational Curve for New Users
- Exonomy's tutorials demonstrate the benefits of using vouchers, encouraging adoption among skeptical villagers and laborers.
- The teacher uses Exonomy to organize workshops explaining how the voucher system supports economic activity and builds trust.
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Completion and Community Impact
- The school is completed, with surplus vouchers distributed over time to anyone needing compensation for teaching in the school, or for doing additional maintenance over time. Villagers get their needed school while remaining economically active.
- The carpenter and farmer gain new customers, and the laborer returns to his town, having received fair compensation and built connections in the village.
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Exocracy for Project Management
- Hierarchical task organization with customizable compensation values.
- Transparent participation, enabling users to volunteer or earn.
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Voucher Market for Consolidation
- Centralized access to published vouchers located in Exonomist vouchers ensures usability and transparency.
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Multi-Value-Chain Transactions
- Intelligent voucher flow features connect stakeholders beyond simple binary transactions by facilitating multi-link, multi-party combinations of vouchers in larger interactions.
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Integration with External Platforms
- WeChat, Metamask, and similar payment APIs provide flexibility for urban supporters to fund rural projects.
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Community Education and Trust Building
- Educational workshops and transparent project tracking foster trust and encourage adoption.
The village school project demonstrates Exonomy's ability to empower rural communities, creating sustainable economic activity and fostering cooperation. The executive bridges urban and rural divides, showcasing Exonomy’s adaptability to cultural and logistical challenges in China. The app facilitates both immediate project needs and long-term economic resilience, decentrally catalyzing rural village life.
In considering this Chinese rural scenario, several additional benefits and mechanisms can be highlighted to address the unique challenges faced by rural communities and the transitional economic activities described. These can strengthen the case for Exonomy's utility and adaptability in such contexts:
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Multi-Link Economic Transactions
- Benefit: Enables multi-party interactions that distribute economic benefits and resources intelligently, creating complex value chains, even in cash-strapped rural areas. In deed, the use of vouchers instead of cash is precisely why these far more complex value chains can exist. Money tries to keep the commercial transaction as simple as possible, pereferrably between the buyer and the seller, obfuscating the less obvious role that money makers play in deciding what ends up being bought and sold in the economy, a form of remote control market manipulation that only works because money has no fixed relationship between those who transact with it.
- Mechanism:
- Exonomy’s outsourced Search-as-a-Service can identify and suggest multi-link transaction opportunities based on published vouchers and published desires for vouchers.
- Notifications alert users to potential collaborations where vouchers indirectly satisfy their needs by circulating among several participants.
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Educational Curve and Gradual Adoption
- Benefit: Introduces Exonomy's decentralized barter model incrementally to villagers and laborers unfamiliar with voucher systems.
- Mechanism:
- Gamified tutorials or success stories are embedded in the app to demonstrate how vouchers can substitute cash in various scenarios.
- “Smart Voucher” tools allow businesses to customize expiration dates, conditions of fungibility, or group-specific discounts to encourage acceptance.
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Hybrid Cash-Voucher System
- Benefit: Bridges the gap for incoming laborers who prefer cash payments while gradually introducing them to voucher benefits.
- Mechanism:
- Businesses and local stakeholders can agree to a partial cash, partial voucher model for payments, incentivizing acceptance through value-added services.
- The transparent Exonomy wallet functions as a “voucher exchange desk” with social media features. Laborers can convert unused vouchers into other goods/services in an entirely decentralized way, affording every Exonomist complete autonomy over their own voucher contributions, as well as their regulatory features, with respect to the local economy.
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Community-Specific Metrics and Trust Building
- Benefit: Builds trust and credibility within tight-knit rural communities by transparently tracking participation and collaboration metrics.
- Mechanism:
- The app includes trust scores based on participation, voucher redemption rates, and peer reviews, enabling informed decision-making for all users.
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Exocratically Encouraging Long-Term Investments
- Benefit: Helps communities invest in larger, cooperative projects like school construction or even bridge repair and reconstruction, as could be the case in Ukraine between east and west, by connecting stakeholders with shared interests.
- Mechanism:
- Voucher pooling allows multiple participants to contribute small amounts to a single project, which laborers can redeem for goods/services within the community or circulate within the local community hoping to cash out.
In Ayurveda, the concepts of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha describe the fundamental energies that govern the body and mind, and their translations in English reflect their core characteristics. Translated into English, these terms represent:
- Vata: Movement or Air/Ether – Represents motion, activity, and adaptability.
- Pitta: Transformation or Fire/Water – Represents heat, metabolism, and purpose.
- Kapha: Stability or Earth/Water – Represents structure, reliability, and cohesion.
These translations align with their metaphorical application to Exonomy metrics, emphasizing dynamics, strategy, and stability.
By drawing inspiration from these principles, the Exonomy’s health can be monitored through a similar triadic framework, treating it like a living system. This approach not only enhances our understanding of Exonomic activity but also fosters a more human-centric and balanced interaction within the ecosystem.
Vata, embodying motion and adaptability, aligns with the Exonomy’s superficial metrics. These metrics measure the frequency and responsiveness of transactions, as well as engagement with new participants. Just as Vata governs movement in the human body, these indicators reflect the agility and dynamism of the Exonomy. By monitoring these activities, we ensure the system remains vibrant and inclusive, adapting fluidly to the needs of its participants.
Pitta, symbolizing heat and transformation, corresponds to medium-level metrics. These include the Red/Black Ratio (RBR), which focuses on trust built through vouchers redeemed by others (completed contributions), transaction size, and the qualitative impact of activities. Like Pitta’s role in regulating metabolism, these metrics balance trust and fairness, enabling strategic decision-making. Monitoring these transformations ensures that the Exonomy operates with purpose and equity, fostering a culture of reciprocal engagement.
Kapha, representing structure and reliability, aligns with deep metrics such as redemption rates and lifetime contributions. These metrics emphasize value delivered through completed contributions (vouchers redeemed by others), highlighting the long-term trustworthiness and stability of participants, mirroring Kapha’s grounding role in the body. By emphasizing these foundational aspects, the Exonomy builds a resilient and enduring framework for collective trust.
By treating the Exonomy as a human system, this triadic approach imposes a more humane and balanced environment upon our interactions, transforming economic activity into a collaborative, trust-driven ecosystem.
Drawing inspiration from Ayurveda, the Exonomy adopts a layered approach to self-awareness, examining the health of its ecosystem through three distinct but interconnected metrics. These metrics align with the Ayurvedic doshas—Vata, Pitta, and Kapha—and represent the superficial, medium, and deep dynamics of voucher movement. By leveraging these insights, Exonomists can assess and enhance their participation in a transparent, dynamic, and trust-based economic system.
The superficial level reflects the movement and flexibility of vouchers, embodying the Vata principle of activity and adaptability. This layer captures metrics related to the frequency and responsiveness of transactions and engagement with new participants. By focusing on activity over a specific time period, such as the past n days, Exonomists gain insights into their immediate transactional behaviors and network dynamics.
- Total Transactions: The number of voucher activities, including issuance, transfer, and redemption.
- New Participant Ratio: The proportion of unique new participants relative to total participants engaged.
- Responsiveness: The average time between transactions, highlighting agility and engagement.
- Transaction Heatmap: Displays periods of high and low activity, enabling Exonomists to identify their peak engagement times.
- Participant Growth Chart: Tracks onboarding trends of new participants.
- Response Time Histogram: Illustrates the distribution of time intervals between transactions.
These metrics encourage Exonomists to maintain a dynamic flow of activity, fostering inclusivity and responsiveness within the Exonomy.
The medium layer aligns with the Pitta principle of strategy and purpose, examining the fairness and intent behind transactions. This layer introduces the Red/Black Ratio (RBR) as a central metric and evaluates the qualitative impact of transactions, focusing on vouchers that have been redeemed by others. Historical trends over specific timelines (e.g., daily, weekly, or monthly) provide deeper insights into completed contributions and trust balance.
- Average Transaction Size by Voucher Category: Analyzes transaction sizes and their alignment with qualitative goals, categorizing them by type and purpose.
- Line Chart: Tracks RBR trends over time, helping Exonomists monitor fairness and trust balance.
- Bar Comparison: Highlights RBR values across different date ranges for easy comparison.
- Pie Chart: Shows the distribution of transaction sizes by voucher category.
- Bubble Chart: Correlates transaction size with qualitative impact, emphasizing meaningful exchanges.
These metrics empower Exonomists to balance their trust contributions and focus on transactions that drive purposeful engagement and equitable reciprocity.
The deep level reflects Kapha’s qualities of stability and reliability, emphasizing long-term trust and redemption patterns. This layer evaluates an Exonomist’s consistency in fulfilling commitments and their cumulative contributions to the Exonomy.
- Percentage of Redemptions Offered: The ratio of vouchers redeemed by others to those published, emphasizing completed contributions as a measure of publisher reliability.
- Lifetime Contributions: The cumulative face value of vouchers issued, transferred, and redeemed over time.
- Stacked Bar Chart: Compares published and redeemed vouchers over specific periods.
- Gauge Chart: Displays the redemption percentage at a glance, providing a quick health check.
- Lifetime Contribution Timeline: Tracks cumulative contributions over time.
- Leaderboard: Ranks Exonomists based on their total contributions, encouraging healthy competition.
These metrics reward consistent, long-term participation and highlight the foundational trust that sustains the Exonomy’s growth.
To unify these insights, an Exonomic Health Dashboard integrates all three layers into a comprehensive view:
- Superficial Metrics (Vata): Transaction heatmap and participant growth trends showcase activity and engagement.
- Medium Metrics (Pitta): RBR timeline and transaction size analysis highlight fairness and strategic impact.
- Deep Metrics (Kapha): Redemption percentages and lifetime contributions reveal reliability and long-term value.
By presenting these metrics together, the dashboard enables Exonomists to monitor their performance across multiple dimensions, fostering self-awareness and informed decision-making. This layered approach, inspired by Ayurveda, transforms the Exonomy into a transparent, adaptive, and resilient ecosystem where every participant’s contributions are visible, measurable, and valued.
Let’s understand how fairness, trust, qualitative impact, and strategic purpose are observed and measured in voucher transactions at the medium-level Pitta concept:
Fairness refers to how equitably participants engage in the system, balancing contributions and benefits. This is observed through:
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RBR Definition: The ratio of published voucher value (red) to held voucher value (black) shows whether an Exonomist is issuing more value than they are holding or vice versa.
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Fairness Insight:
- A balanced RBR close to 1.0 suggests fairness, indicating that the Exonomist is engaging in reciprocal trust exchanges.
- A high RBR (e.g., 2.0 or above) might indicate overextension, where the Exonomist is issuing more vouchers than they hold or redeem, potentially signaling a lack of reliability.
- A low RBR (e.g., 0.5 or below) suggests under-engagement, where the Exonomist is holding more vouchers than they are issuing, potentially hoarding value.
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Strategic Purpose: By observing RBR trends over time:
- Exonomists can identify whether their engagement aligns with their strategic goals, such as fostering reciprocal trust or prioritizing certain relationships.
- Communities can monitor participants’ contributions to the broader ecosystem.
Trust is built through interactions that demonstrate reliability and mutual benefit. It is observed in:
- Historical Trust: Long-term RBR trends show whether an Exonomist has consistently maintained balanced or reciprocal relationships.
- Current Trust: A snapshot of the current RBR reveals how actively and equitably the Exonomist is participating in the system.
- Trust grows through repeated successful transactions:
- Frequent small transactions build consistent trust.
- High-value transactions, if completed successfully, can signify deep trust between participants.
Qualitative impact reflects the meaningfulness or purpose behind transactions. This is observed through:
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Voucher Categories:
- Vouchers may represent essentials (e.g., food, services) or luxuries (e.g., art, entertainment).
- Categories can be aligned with community goals, such as addressing urgent needs or supporting creative ventures.
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Qualitative Goals:
- Large transaction sizes in essential categories might indicate strategic contributions to high-priority needs.
- Smaller transactions in diverse categories might show broader engagement and inclusivity.
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Alignment:
- Evaluating transaction size by category helps determine whether an Exonomist’s activities align with the system’s goals (e.g., promoting barter over hoarding, supporting underserved areas).
To observe fairness, trust, and qualitative impact effectively, visual tools can be employed:
- RBR Timeline: Shows how an Exonomist’s trust balance evolves over time, highlighting periods of overextension or under-engagement.
- Category-Based Pie Charts: Illustrate the proportion of transactions across different voucher types.
- Bubble Charts: Correlate transaction size with qualitative categories to identify impactful exchanges.
- Fairness: Observed through balanced RBR values and trends, reflecting equitable engagement.
- Strategic Purpose: Identified by monitoring RBR changes over time and aligning activity with specific goals.
- Trust: Measured by consistent and reciprocal transactions, with high-value exchanges signifying deeper trust.
- Qualitative Impact: Evaluated through transaction sizes and their alignment with voucher categories and community objectives.
The Exonomy, like its partner, the economy, is a universe of giving and receiving. Exonomists come in many flavors, but it's valuable to at least be able to measure ourselves on the scale of benevolence and greed, which can be inferred from transactional behavior and trust dynamics within the system. These metrics can be designed to evaluate how Exonomists engage with others in terms of generosity (benevolence) or accumulation (greed). Here’s how they can be measured and what additional data might be needed:
Definition: Benevolence reflects the willingness of an Exonomist to contribute value by fulfilling the promises of their vouchers, measured through vouchers they have issued and that others have redeemed.
Proposed Metric: Contribution Ratio (CR)
Formula:
Interpretation:
- A high CR (>1.0) indicates that the Exonomist delivers significantly more value than they consume, showcasing altruism and proactive engagement.
- A low CR (<1.0) may suggest the Exonomist consumes more than they contribute, highlighting lower participation or dependence.
Additional Data Needed:
- Completed Redemptions: Total value of vouchers redeemed by others from the Exonomist, representing fulfilled commitments.
- Redemption Timestamps: Dates when vouchers are redeemed to track patterns of periodic or sustained benevolence.
Indicators of Benevolence:
- Proactive Redemption Offers: Frequent offers to redeem vouchers, fulfilling obligations.
- High Completion Rate: A large proportion of issued vouchers are redeemed by others.
Definition: Greed reflects the tendency to accumulate vouchers without redistributing or fulfilling commitments by allowing others to redeem them.
Proposed Metric: Accumulation Ratio (AR)
Formula:
Interpretation:
- A high AR (>1.0) suggests greed, as the Exonomist holds more value than they have delivered.
- A low AR (<1.0) indicates a balanced approach, where the Exonomist actively redistributes and fulfills commitments.
Additional Data Needed:
- Held Vouchers: The cumulative value of vouchers currently held by the Exonomist, not yet redeemed or transferred.
- Hoarding Duration: The length of time vouchers are held without being redeemed.
Indicators of Greed:
- Low Redemption Rate: Few vouchers held by the Exonomist are redeemed by others.
- High Value Hoarding: Retaining a disproportionate number of high-value vouchers.
Benevolence and RBR:
- A low RBR combined with a high CR demonstrates an Exonomist who fulfills commitments and contributes value without excessive consumption.
Greed and RBR:
- A low RBR combined with a high AR signals an Exonomist who accumulates value without allowing others to benefit, undermining trust and system balance.
Benevolence-Greed Spectrum:
- A scatterplot with CR on the x-axis and AR on the y-axis:
- Quadrants categorize behaviors (e.g., benevolent, balanced, greedy, disengaged).
- Color-coded RBR values overlay trustworthiness insights.
Hoarding Trend Chart:
- A timeline tracking the cumulative value of vouchers held against completed contributions, highlighting patterns of prolonged hoarding or active redemption.
- Encourage Benevolence: Reward Exonomists with high CR and low AR, promoting positive behavior through incentives or recognition.
- Identify Greed: Highlight participants with high AR for potential corrective actions, such as limits on voucher holdings.
- Promote Balance: Enable Exonomists to self-regulate by providing transparent insights into their RBR, CR, and AR metrics.
- Adaptability to Existing Systems: Exonomy does not seek to replace traditional monetary systems but complements them where and when cash is either scarce or it simply isn't the best instrument in the wallet.
- Support for Remote Collaboration: Allows urban professionals like the executive in Hangzhou to directly impact their home villages without relying on intermediaries.
- Self-Sustaining Economic Activity: Empowers villages to sustain local economies through community-driven value creation, even in cash-strapped situations.
- Inclusivity: The system works for all stakeholders, from rural laborers and businesses to urban sponsors and donors.
- Scalability: Once accepted, the voucher system can scale to include more services, participants, and larger projects.
Vouchers can interact symbiotically with cash as a form of credit and also be transformed into real cash on demand. Using services like those available with Stripe.com, vouchers can be transacted along with the option to be redeemed by the voucher consumer in the form of cash via a Stripe transfer.
Here’s how the Exonomy app interacts with the Exonomist's Stripe account to enable payments and optional voucher redemption with cash instead of the product or service the voucher originally represents:
- Stripe Account Setup: The Exonomist links their Stripe account within the app, enabling direct payment capabilities.
- Voucher Payment: During a transaction, the Exonomist uses a voucher as payment. The app deducts the voucher’s value from the total price.
- Optional Redemption: If the voucher’s new owner opts for cash redemption, the app initiates the following process:
- Redemption Request: The owner triggers a redemption action.
- Cash Equivalent Validation: The app checks the voucher’s metadata, verifies its cash equivalent, and ensures sufficient funds in the original Exonomist’s Stripe account.
- Stripe Payment Transfer:
- Payment Setup: The app uses Stripe’s API to initiate a transfer, specifying the voucher’s cash value, the payer (original Exonomist), and the payee (redeemer).
- Authorization: Stripe validates account balances and ensures all transaction details are legitimate.
- Transfer Execution: Funds are securely transferred from the original Exonomist’s account to the redeemer’s Stripe account.
- Confirmation: The app marks the voucher as redeemed, preventing further use.
- Voucher Update: The voucher’s status is updated to reflect its redemption, completing the process.
A draft functional specification for integrating voucher-Stripe payment symbiosis can be found here.
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Lack of Connection to Value Sources:
Money functions as a generic medium of exchange, detached from the specific products or services it allegedly represents at the time of transaction. When exchanged, it doesn't bind itself to the source of value (e.g., a local farmer or carpenter), interfering with the direct and indirect relationship between economic actors desiring to trade products and services between themselves.- In contrast, vouchers in Exonomy explicitly tie value to specific products or services, reinforcing trust and loyalty within the community.
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No Skin in the Game:
Money's intangible nature means it has no inherent commitment to any individual or local economy. Its primary goal is to circulate freely, prioritizing liquidity over loyalty. Considering the tradition of central banking, it can be argued that money's makers are not really interested in the free circulation of money, as is seen during times of catastrophic depression in which money doesn't move at all or during extreme inflation when money moves far more than it would if left alone.- Exonomy vouchers, however, have “skin in the game” because they represent the commitments of real people to specific goods, services, or projects, rooting value creation within the community.
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Unbound Circulation:
Money incentivizes recipients to seek the most advantageous deals, often outside the local market, as it can be spent anywhere. This behavior drains cash from the local economy, leaving smaller markets vulnerable.- Exonomy vouchers, by contrast, are locally anchored, fostering loyalty and ensuring economic activity remains within the community.
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Erosion of Trust and Relationships:
Money's fungibility and anonymity make it impersonal, prevents its decentralized regulation, and reduces the need for direct, trust-based interactions between buyers and sellers. This discourages the cultivation of long-term relationships.- Vouchers create a sense of mutual accountability, as their use relies on direct, trust-driven transactions.
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Encourages Wealth Extraction:
Money's flexibility incentivizes recipients to remove cash from local circulation, often spending it on external goods or services. This creates a wealth outflow that weakens local markets.- Vouchers are inherently resistant to this extraction because their value is tied to specific local providers, ensuring resources remain within the community.
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No Ties to Local Development:
Money does not differentiate between purchases that support local development and those that do not. It can be used to fund activities or products that undermine local resilience, such as purchasing from external competitors.- Exonomy’s vouchers inherently promote local development by directing value to community-specific offerings.
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Community-Driven Loyalty:
Vouchers cultivate loyalty by binding value to local providers, ensuring economic activity benefits the immediate community.- For example, a farmer issuing food vouchers guarantees that economic transactions reinforce their business and, by extension, the local supply chain.
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Trust-Based Ecosystem:
Exonomy builds a trust-driven network where transactions foster accountability and strengthen relationships. Unlike money, which is inherently impersonal, vouchers encourage meaningful interactions and shared goals. -
Anchored Economic Activity:
By tying value to specific goods, services, or projects, Exonomy vouchers prevent wealth extraction and incentivize local investment and development.- For instance, vouchers for school construction labor create multi-value chains, keeping resources circulating among the community.
Money’s inherent anonymity, fungibility, and neutrality make it ill-suited for fostering resilient local economies. It neither cultivates loyalty nor ensures resources remain in the community, often incentivizing behaviors that undermine local economic activity. Exonomy vouchers, on the other hand, align value with trust, loyalty, and community development. They create an ecosystem where economic activity strengthens relationships and sustains local markets, achieving outcomes that money fundamentally cannot.