Hard Money Project Raison d'être

THE HARD MONEY PROJECT

Product-Market Fit

Currencies are a requirement of economies

Bad Currency Systems candistort economies

Self-regulating currenciesprevent insider capture

Incentives to use aSELF-SOVEREIGN DIGITAL CURENCY

The Gold Standard for the digital age

NATIVE CURRENY SYSTEM for a Global Payments Settlement Ledger

Unleashing Asset-Object Tokenization Power

Tokenized CurrencyA

Buyer

Tokenized CurrencyB

Seller

Foreign Exchange = Unitary Ratio

Y : 1

Tokenized Currency

Payer

Tokenized Economic ObjectGood or Service

Payee

Price = Unitary Ratio

X : 1

Tokenized Currency

CreditorInvestor

Interest/ Price = Unitary Ratio

Z : 1

DebtorIssuer

Tokenized Financial Contract

Tokenized Economic ObjectGood or Service

Input Spending

Price = Unitary Ratio

X : 1

Payment for Economic Goods and Services

Payment for Exchanging Currencies or Assets

Payment for Financial Contracts ORInvestments/ Insurance

CURRENCY DEMAND A

CURRENCY DEMAND B

CURRENCY DEMAND C

Explainer

The essence of money and payments stems from human interdependence, with each transaction involving two key elements: the "payment method" (any form of money used) and the "payment objective" (such as a product, service, or financial contract), which fulfills our needs. Radix acts as a distributed ledger that securely and efficiently tokenizes these two elements of the payment: both physical and native digital assets, including digital currencies, economic objects, and financial contracts. Its object-based programming environment simplifies and secures the payment and transfer of these assets for both personal and legal entity accounts. As a universal ledger registry, Radix ensures straightforward and secure auto-custody of various valuable items, complemented by its advanced UX/UI. Radix, functioning as a public registry for payment settlement, requires a native and independent currency system. It functions as a unit of account for communities of any size and acts as a reliable store of value, fulfilling the roles of good money within the finest infrastructure available.

DIGITAL CURRENCY MAP Possibilities and their characteristics

Towards more inclusive currency for society

FIXED

SUPPLY NATURE

DETERMINISTIC

ELASTIC

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

INFLATIONARY

DEFLATIONARY

STABLE ECONOMY & PURCHASING POWER

Currency Value

+

Currency Value

-

EconomicDistortions

+

EconomicDistortions

+

Explainer

Peg=Dependency

Stablecoin Challenges

CRYPTO w/ Finite Supply + Peg Tokens

FIAT CURRENCY + Peg Tokens (Stablecoins)

CRYPTO w/ Infinite Supply + Peg Tokens

TOKENIZED GOLD/ Commodities + Pegs

CRYPTO w/ Deflarionary Supply + Pegs

Self-Sovereign Digital Currencies (SSDCs)

PEG = DEPENDENCY lacking Sovereignty by design

Independence and Dependence in elastic digital currecy systems

Price/ Exchange Rate Anchor

INDEPENDENT CURRENCY SYSTEMS

DEPENDENT / PEGGEDCURRENCY SYSTEMS

TARGETNonimal Anchor

Domestic Economic Indicators

PrimaryPOLICY TOOL

Ex: Policy Interest Rate/Monetary aggregate

TARGETNonimal Anchor

Foreign Exchange Rate

PrimaryPOLICY TOOL

Ex: Foreign Exchange ReservesForeign policy tools

PEG FLEXIBILITY

+

-

FREE FLOAT

CRAWL LIKE

CRAWLING PEG

HORIZONTAL BANDS

CONVENTIONAL PEG

CURRENCY BOARD

dollarization

EXCHANGE RATE ARRANGEMENTS

Digital Currency Example

USDC ( Circle)

Libra ( Facebook)

OHM ( Olympus DAO)

Nuon ( Fflatcoin)

Fiat ( CBDC)

SSDCs

RAI ( Reflexer)

Explainer

Independent Monetary Policy. These systems autonomously and flexibly utilize monetary policy tools, such as interest rates or monetary aggregates, to regulate the money supply. They align these adjustments with specific targets or nominal anchors that are closely linked to domestic economic conditions. These may include inflation or price levels, employment rates, nominal or real output, or a combination of these factors. Independent Unit of Account. The issuer, either a social institution or a digital protocol, defines and uses its own currency as the standard for pricing goods and services, measuring economic value, and recording financial transactions within its economy. This independence allows the issuer to establish and maintain its own system for measuring and representing economic value, free from direct influence or control by external currencies or economic systems.

Dependent Monetary Policy. These are systems where monetary policy is largely limited to managing foreign exchange reserves as primary policy tool, denominated in foreign currency, or replicating the policy tools of a pegged foreign currency system. The focus is on aligning the money supply with a specific exchange rate target, a range or combination of them, compromising the ability and autonomy to tailor monetary policy to domestic economic needs.

Offers the highest flexibility as the currency relative value (exchange rate) is determined entirely by market forces without the issuer's intervention.

This is the adoption of a foreign currency (such as the U.S. dollar) in place of a issuer's domestic currency. It eliminates the ability to conduct independent monetary policy and exchange rate adjustments.

Under this system, the currency value is strictly pegged to a foreign currency, with the domestic currency supply fully backed by foreign currency reserves. This severely limits the issuer's ability to conduct independent monetary policy.

This arrangement involves a fixed exchange rate where a currency's value is pegged at a fixed rate to a major currency or a basket of currencies. The issuer intervenes to maintain the peg, but unlike a currency board, it is not based on an explicit commitment to exchange domestic currency at a fixed rate.

In this system, a currency is allowed to fluctuate within a certain range (band) around a central rate. The bands provide some flexibility for the currency to respond to market pressures, but the issuer's intervention using foreign exchange reserves is used to maintain the currency within these bands.

This is a type of exchange rate regime in which the pegged value is adjusted periodically. Adjustments are made at fixed, small increments to combat inflation differentials or other economic indicators, allowing for some gradual currency flexibility.

This is similar to a crawling peg but with greater flexibility. The currency is adjusted more frequently and in response to market indicators, such as a moving average of the price for example. The rate of crawl (adjustment) can vary, providing a higher degree of flexibility compared to a strict crawling peg.

Generally, any elastic currency system activates its circulating supply dynamics through two key levers: - The policy target or nominal anchor, which can be one or several indicators used to feed the feedback loop that influences the money supply. - The primary policy tool used to activate and influence the distribution of new circulating supply. This primary tool may be complemented by a toolbox with various instruments that help shape it.

STABLECOINS Fiat Currency Pegs without parity guarantee

Asymmetric rules preventing fungibility between currency issuers

L1

CENTRAL BANK

L2

COMMERCIAL OR NARROW BANKS

L3

NON-BANKS (E-MONEY)

L4

"DECENTRALIZED" PROTOCOLS

CB Deposits/Reserves

Credit

rCBDC & wCBDC

Deposit Tokens

Fiat Backed Stablecoins

CB Deposits/ Reserves

rCBDC & wCBDC

'Decentralized' Stablecoins or Flatcoins

Reserved-Backed Tokens (RBCs)

Deposit Tokens

Fiat Backed Stablecoins

ASSETS

LIABILITIES

L1

L2

L3

L4

Redemption chain of Claims Promising Fiat Value

Fiat Currency Value (PP) regulated here

No Guaranteed ParityRedemption

Non Redeemable

Guaranteed ParityRedemption

(IOUs Chain)

Paity Guaranteed

Paity NO Guaranteed

Explainer

PULIC BACKSTOPS

Hardest Settlement Asset (Fiat IOU)

Reserve-Backed Tokens (RBCs)

SSDC Self-Sovereign Digital Currencies

Time for a Digital Currency Standard for all

4

5

3

DEMOCRATIZING THE DISTRIBUTION OF NEW CURRENCY

NON-COMPETITIVE SSDC CURRENCY EXCHANGES

2

AUTONOMOUSLY ADAPTABLE CURRENCY SUPPLY

VALUE-BACKEDCURRENCY

Our analysis indicates that a common Global Payments Settlement Ledger, with transactional information accessible to the protocol mechanisms, enables the establishment of an immutable Digital Currency Standard. This standard serves as a rule set governing the following principles for each community's Self-Sovereign Digital Currency.

1

FREE ENTRY & EXIT

Hover to expand

An open, permissionless, globally accessible system ensuring every individual can participate in a good currency system with uniform mechanics across currencies, without discrimination. Symmetric rules applied against any human being, without preferences or discrimination. In the system's entry mechanism, the initial parameterization of the unit of account for each community currency is also important, to ensure stability in purchasing power both initially and over time among community currencies.

Backed by uncensorable and redeemable “digital commodity money” that either maintains or increases in price value relative to existing fiat over time, ideally backed by both deflationary, deterministically supplied, and elastically supplied outside money (since good money doesn't necessarily make good currency). The defined commodities would be unalterable over time, not subject to governance.

While backed by redeemable hard, digital commodity money tokens, which give value to entering and exiting the system, an autonomous and independent monetary policy mechanism is needed that periodically adjusts the currency supply, expanding or contracting, to match each community economy's productive capacity and without human intervention or discretion. This approach would prevent distortions in an economy from using the digital commodity money tokens as currency, while preserving balanced purchasing power and the real value of the currency.The mechanics the rule the system are symmetric and non-discriminatory for any human being.

New money issuance, based on each economy's absorptive capacity and productivity, must be justly distributed to productive uses in each community economy to avoid social inequalities. Therefore, seigniorage linked to the net interest income gained from distributing currency as credit, or as a social dividend (as determined by the Credit Routing Protocol linked to the Monetary Protocol), will be democratized and distributed equitably with equal opportunity to verified users’ accounts, one account per person. In essence, the Monetary Policy Mechanism of the Money Protocol, for each currency, determines the issuance or contraction of the currency, and this connects with the Credit Routing Protocol to determine the instruments and distribution mechanics of the currency.

The DLT payment settlement data enables a fairly priced primary market, promoting cooperative, sum-sum currency exchanges between communities with sovereign currencies, thereby preventing currency wars. SSDC, Currencies can also be exchanged in secondary markets and used in (DeFi) financial markets of the Radix Ecosystem.

INCENTIVES FOR HOLDING & TRANSACTING WITH SSDC

Stable Purchasing Power Currency

CommunityParticipatoryBudgeting

Financial Inclusion for all

Censorship & Corruptability Resistance

Utility inEcosystemEvolution

XRD Appreciation Pressures

Backed byAppreciatingMoney

Network Validation Rewards

Inter-Community Cooperation

Native Currency System

Currency Debasement Resistant

Community Wisdom & Cooperation

EarlyParticipationBenefits

Robust DLT Payments System

Democratic Decision-Making

HODL Digital Commoditiesfor stable value

Secure Web3 Custody

Freedomof Economic Choice

TrueSeigniorageIncome

EMPOWERMENT & AGENCYIndividual and collective

DEMOCRATIZED

ECONOMIC

NETWORK &ECOSYSTEM

Every person, regardless of their geography or birth conditions, and the economy they live in, has the RIGHT to transact in a stable value currency in terms of purchasing power, adapted to the conditions of their community economy where they interact daily.

Seigniorage, the income derived from the issuance of currency, which in the current fiat system is limited to the central bank, remitted to the government (public seigniorage) and the banking system (private seigniorage), is democratized. In this system, you as a user with unique identity have equitable access to creditor income from newly issued money when it is in the form of credit and social dividends.

Distributed Participatory Budgeting for Public Goods funded through the Community Treasury, allowing the right to participate democratically or to delegate it to a trusted representative.

Offering the first stable purchasing power system as a permanent public good, providing barrier-free choice of currency and community economy, with the freedom to enter or exit the system at any time, while retaining your value.

Access without discrimination to an ecosystem of financial applications connected to the currency system through the Radix network.

Securely custody your identity, currency, data, value generated and assets on Radix's Web3 Ecosystem at all times.

Free from censorship and corruption in the system’s operations and your value, without any human interference. How valuable it is to have control over all your wealth and value generated in your life, all your data and identity, at all times and wherever you go, with the assurance that it cannot be manipulated.

Empowerment of the community and the wisdom of the crowd, as community members hold the closest information on their financing and public good needs.

Mechanisms that promote cooperation between communities. Entering the system is not about choosing between competing currencies but about exiting the fiat system.

The ability to participate in the system's democratic decisions, either by directly engaging in seigniorage and community budget planning or by delegating these responsibilities to your trusted parties.

Be long digital commodity money while enjoying stable value currency in terms of purchasing power. The incentive of HODL for currency backed by digital commodities is greater than HODLing each digital commodity separately.

Experience the appreciation in relative value from a system backed by deflationary money, featuring both a fixed deterministic supply and a deflationary elastic supply commodities. The stable currency system and advanced payment infrastructure on Radix amplify the network effect, exerting upward pressure on the value of digital commodities with respect to fiat.

Settling all economic activity on-chain on the ledger, combined with autonomous programmed system mechanisms leveraging the feedback loop from economic activity to adjust currency supply in each economy, ensures stable purchasing power at all times, free from manipulation and censorship.

Enjoy the power of validating the network, earning yield both in the form of digital commodity and currency.

Being an early adopter offers bootstrapping rewards in the form of digital commodities and purchasing power as currency.

Currency payments on Radix's secure and feature-rich payment system, the most scalable and efficient distributed ledger tested, with secure and effective programmability, enhanced user experience.

Enjoy the utility and programmable use cases provided by using the native currency system of the constantly evolving Radix ecosystem.

Easy to integrate any of your DApps, with infinite use cases, with the native currency system.

Paying all network fees in XRD, a digital commodity backing the protocol, means that increased demand for stable purchasing power currency and higher use of the Radix Ecosystem leads to higher XRD demand, appreciating its value relative to other assets, like fiat currencies.

As a citizen or business, it's crucial to trust that the money tokens I transact with – which underpins my income, stored wealth, and daily economic transactions – will retain parity in the purchasing power of a specified X fiat currency (e.g. USD) that I believe I have.

However, can this promise always be guaranteed?

Currency issuance in Fiat Systems: IOU claims backed by assets

The nature and risks of assets backing IOUs matter

Parity challenges for issuers without Public Backstops

Achieving uniformity in Bank-Issued Currency Claims

The Role of CB Liabilities

General Conclusions

In fiat currency systems and their pegged systems, currency issuance typically involves emitting claims or IOUs, purportedly backed by assets to ensure parity with the fiat currency issued by the central bank. This includes various forms of digital currency tokens like tokenized deposits or Deposit tokens (L2), fiat-backed stablecoins (L3), or decentralized stablecoins and flatcoins (L4).

The hardest asset backing each IOU is a claim from a higher issuer denominated in X fiat currency; for example, a bank's deposits are backed by the fiat currency issued by the central bank, the ultimate unit of account, accessible through central bank reserves or digital forms like rCBDC or wCBDC (when available). In contrast, if the currency IOU is backed by assets with liquidity, credit risks, or price volatility, that can be denominated in any X fiat, parity is never guaranteed.

However, without public backstops such as deposit insurance schemes and central bank lending facilities, typically between levels 1 and 2, achieving fungible one-to-one parity and consistent redemption value for different issuers' IOUs to central bank’s liabilities becomes unfeasible. This explains why the purchasing power of stablecoin issuers either in level 3 or in level 4 may not always be guaranteed, and therefore trusted for daily economic activity.

In fiat systems, uniformity for bank-issued currency claims is maintained by settling payments in primary markets with CB reserves (redemption of bank deposits to CB reserves transferred to another bank), unlike in secondary markets like those for stablecoins (e.g. Curve), where token claims of currency are traded against each other with possible slippage (price deviations). During interbank payments, banks transfer these liquid CB reserves to one another, ensuring uniformity and parity among deposits. This requires sufficient CB reserve liquidity, recourse to the public backstops in case of liquidity shortage or to the insurance in case of insolvency.

The uniformity in value, relative price to other assets or currencies, and the singleness of all tokens issued that promise parity with a fiat currency X can only be guaranteed by the architectural design of the current monetary system under the following premises: 1. Access to the balance of the fiat currency issuer (Central Bank in L1) and consequently to its issued liabilities. This access grants entry to public backstops mitigating the risk of bank runs and loss of token value parity (up to a limit set by insurance deposit schemes). 2. Currency payments settling in central bank currency. The singleness of currency is ensured as payments or swaps between tokens issued by different issuers always settle in central bank liabilities, thanks to a primary market enabling exchange through token redemption of CB liabilities, not via secondary markets with possible slippage. 3. Bank run risks mitigations. The transparency of DLT systems means that a significant deviation from the parity price accelerates a bank run.

Conventionally, in Fiat Currency Systems with elastic supply, Commercial Banks generate deposit money through loan issuance. They then borrow liquid reserves from the interbank market or the central bank's discount window, lender of last resort, for payment settlements, withdrawals, or central bank requirements. This process yields a net interest as benefit for banks in the creation and distribution of new money (private seigniorage). In summary, new money in circulation is issued based on credit demand and distributed through the banking system (although not all agents are banked).The Central Bank, as the issuer of base money like bank reserves, regulates circulating currency through Monetary Policy, albeit challengingly. The conventional tool is passive, adjusting the policy interest rate range, the incentive for credit, in a credit-elastic system, and proactive tools are used contextually for influencing this rate, including open market operations and reserve requirements (not currently). These inject or withdraw central bank liquid reserves from the banking system. Monetary policy employs various instruments within these tools, tailored to the economic context and policy framework.In these flywheel systems, National Governments are the largest legal debtor entity, financing themselves theoretically for public goods spending and repaying this debt by taxing the population or issuing more debt in need of monetization (Fiscal Policy), largely monetized by the central bank. However, they also govern the central bank, the fiat regulator. In cases where the independence between the central bank and the government is unclear, the latter can continually demand the monetization of their issued debt.Understanding the overall dynamics, it's clear that not all Fiat Currency Systems are equally disciplined in their central bank-regulated policies, but none will ever achieve economic balance. The majority of the independent central banks have a positive inflation target in their policy framework, that we know it leads to redistributive consequences and social inequality, just by design.

The need for a native on-chain currency system leads us to decide on the nature of its money supply over time. This can be fixed, determined by a time-based multiplier that can increase or decrease, or elastic, requiring backing by assets for expansion or contraction, and a monetary policy framework to regulate it. If an economy's purchasing capacity, indicated by its economic outputs or objects, isn't rigid or predictable and is influenced by various factors, then the purchasing power, represented by circulating currency, also can't be rigid but must have necessary flexibility to avoid causing distortions and imbalances in the economy.This capacity is influenced by heterogeneous factors in each geography and economy, such as technology, labor productivity, resource availability, and consumer demand.A monetary system puts inflationary or deflationary pressures when the velocity or currency spending goes to Demand A (Economic Payments). Monetary policy need to be calibrated to demand A to not distort the economy. But it is important to understand the nature of its money supply to understand the pressures it may converge to if widespread use.A marginal increase in the money supply ready to circulate and be spent, without a corresponding increase in economic objects, will cause inflationary pressure in the economy. Inflationary currencies lose purchasing power. A certain amount of currency buys less goods and services overtime.Conversely, a marginal increase in economic objects due to productivity, without a matching increase in monetary objects, will lead to deflationary pressure.Characteristics of both:Deflationary currencies gain purchasing power. A certain amount of currency buys more goods and services overtime. while induces a decrease in nominal GDP.Both cases are distortive for an ordered society if currencies with these characteristics are widespread used.