Internet of Value Manifesto

The World Wide Web has had a tremendous global impact, increasing access to information and education. However, this has not yet translated into ubiquitous access to efficient financial systems and the ability to transact with anyone in the world.

The Web connected fragmented documentation systems with a common set of standards. Today’s systems of value exchange lack a set of common standards, and are still proprietary, disconnected, and opaque.

This document outlines a vision for the Web where value is exchanged as freely and easily as information. The Web unified varied and disparate closed information networks through open standards and protocols. In the same way, we should the expect the Internet of Value will create an open and interconnected network of value exchange linking all of the closed networks that exist today.

Realising this vision would have profound and far reaching economic and social impacts on financial inclusion, development of small businesses, liquidity of markets, and greater velocity and efficiency of money.

Principles of the Internet of Value

This vision can only be realised through the collaboration of a variety of stakeholders united in their agreement with the following principles:

There are many value networks and there always will be

Ownership of anything of value is recorded and tracked within numerous and diverse networks of trust. The changing ownership or transfer of value within those networks is recorded in a ledger of some form or another. These ledgers are maintained by custodians such as...

• Commercial and Retail Banks
• Central banks
• Clearinghouses
• Digital wallets
• Registers of deeds
• Stock Exchanges
• Blockchains
• Patent offices

… and many more.

Greater diversity of custodians, ledgers and assets is a good thing, but without a set of Web standards to connect them, increasing the number and diversity will quickly become unsustainable.

The world is tending towards increased global trade and interconnectivity. The lack of standards is likely to continue to increase costs and stand in the way of economic progress.

There are many ways to connect value networks

There are numerous and varied methods of moving value between owners, both within the same network and between disparate networks. Each one of these methods has different strengths and weaknesses depending on the scenario.

Some methods of moving value between owners have higher risks and lower fees.

[Illustration - Cash]

Others have lower risks and higher fees.

[Illustration - Cards]

The open architecture of the Web enables a rapid pace of innovation which has increasingly resulted in new types of value exchange methods.

[Illustration - Crypto-currencies]

This vision embraces all of these existing technologies as well as those that are in active development today.

Value moves as freely as information on the Web

The Web increased efficiency and lowered costs of information exchange by many orders of magnitude. These sorts of efficiency gains are possible via the Web for the exchange of value.

[Illustration - ?]

The Internet of Value is open and accessible

Nobody is arbitrarily denied access to the Internet of Value.

[Illustration - diverse users of the Value Web]

The Internet of Value is built on trust and security

Value exchange on the Web is done in an environment of honesty and trust built on secure and resilient systems. It provides tools that allow law-abiding consumers, merchants and financial institutions to have confidence in the individuals and entities with whom they transact, to be free to choose who those individuals and entities are, and to be able to trust that these counterparties are who they claim to be.

[Illustration - trust/shaking hands, security/lock]

The Internet of Value is simultaneously private and transparent

There is a need for transparency in moving value on a global network between entities that are subject to different legal and regulatory systems in different jurisdictions. However, privacy as a fundamental right of all participants.

The future of value exchange via the Web offers the transparency required for all participants to operate within the law but ensures that the privacy of participants is always guaranteed, through the use of secure open protocols incorporating end-to-end data protection.

[Illustration - masked/protected data]

No single entity controls the Internet of Value

The Internet is a public good and is not subject to the whims of one group or another. It is distributed, global, and neutral with respect to payment networks, currencies, technologies, service providers, and participating entities.

[Illustration - distributed system]

The Internet of Value is built on open standards

In order for value networks, settlement systems, and related services to compete on a level playing field, the foundations of value exchange via the Web must be open, transparent, and neutral. Customers, merchants, financial institutions, and governments stand to benefit from a strong foundation built on open standards.

The Value Web is built on OpenStand’s five principles for modern standards and it’s standards are free to acquire, free to adopt, and not encumbered by patents.

[Illustration - Open stand logo?]

The Internet of Value is simple and extensible

Today’s financial system is complex and one of the key challenges for the architects of the Internet of Value will be to abstract key areas of complexity and create a simple, universal framework that supports existing systems while enabling a smooth transition to more advanced, extensible, and equitable systems.

Rules and regulations around the world differ widely. By creating an extensible set of standards, the Web enables individuals or entire value networks to work out the details that are relevant to them. This provides institutions with the flexibility to comply with their local regulations and follow their local customs while connecting globally.

The standards for value exchange on the Web should be clearly documented to lower the barrier to entry for any entity that wishes to integrate with, or extend it.

[Illustration - developer]

Building an Equitable Global Economy via the Web

The Web connects three billion people today and will connect at least three billion more by the year 2020. It is ubiquitous and that ubiquity will only grow over the next decade. The Web is the best connector of information systems that exists today, but there is still much work that needs to be done when connecting the economic systems and value networks that span the world over.

It is our vision to connect the economic systems of the world via the Web using the principles outlined in this document. Doing so will result in an global architecture for value exchange, built openly, secure by design, and accessible to all.

Acknowledgements

The editors wish to thank the participants of the W3C Web Payments Interest Group for discussions about and contributions to this document, especially Manu Sporny, Dave Longley, Pat Adler and Katie Haritos-Shea.