ARC Open Governance

The platform

What you get with VΛLIS

VALIS is the first implementation of the architecture and the commercial platform built on it, and what follows is what it means for one person, because one person is who it is for. Machines and agents increasingly act on your work, your money, and your name. VALIS is the set of instruments that keeps you the authority over every one of those actions, and each instrument is concrete enough to use on the first day.

The inbox

Every consequential request arrives in the inbox first, so intention asks permission in one queue.

  • Each request states what it wants to cause, under whose authority, and within what bounds, and waits there readable in full.
  • An item can be approved, refused, or questioned, and it carries the evidence for its own decision.
  • A policy set in advance can settle the routine ones automatically.
  • Nothing reaches execution by going around the inbox.

The authority wallet

The wallet holds authority rather than money, and signing from it is how authority is exercised.

  • It keeps the keys, and the delegations granted and received, each with its scope attached.
  • Every delegation is bounded by purpose, by amount, by counterpart, and by time.
  • A delegation can be narrowed or revoked at any moment.
  • Whoever holds one can act within exactly the authority the wallet records and no further.

The record

A history in VΛLIS is a chain of evidence rather than a log taken on faith.

  • Every settled consequence leaves a receipt at the moment it lands.
  • Each one also leaves a Statement that anyone can verify afterwards from the record itself.
  • The record can be exported, rechecked, and shown to anyone who needs to rely on it.

Earning, in arcs

Contribution is how the network grows, and contribution is recognized in arcs, the network unit, on the model of a loyalty program rather than a currency.

  • Running a node, verifying the record, building, examining, and teaching are witnessed and entered in the open, and arcs are minted only against witnessed entries.
  • Like airline miles, arcs accumulate in the wallet and are redeemed inside the network for services, access, and standing.
  • As the network matures, arcs become exchangeable between members through a governed bridge, at recorded rates and under the institution’s rules.
  • An arc represents witnessed contribution to a growing body of work, and the network publishes that growth as an index called IQ.

The terms are published and fixed.

  • One hundred million arcs will ever exist.
  • At the opening, a settled eligible contribution recognizes forty arcs, thirty-four to the contributor and six to the foundation treasury.
  • The rate falls by ten percent at every epoch of two hundred fifty thousand eligible entries, so earlier work is recognized more richly and the supply approaches its cap as the network matures.
  • Every settlement is metered from the first entry onward, which is what makes the accounting provable rather than promised.
  • The treasury moves only through the foundation’s governed process, in public.

Earning is live from the opening. The single piece that opens later is the bridge to value outside the network.

The public ledger, and clearing

Underneath the instruments sits the ledger, and the ledger is public.

  • Every consequential action the network settles, and every question of what was reachable by whom and under what authority, is entered on a hash-linked record published with the release.
  • Anyone can read and verify the record in full, so claims about what happened become entries anyone can check, and strangers can rely on the same history.
  • The founding ledger already stands in the founding release, entries one through seventeen, each one verified, and the network ledger grows from it as nodes join.
  • The ledger also works as the network’s clearing, because contributions, obligations, and exchanges are entered against the same record and settle against it.
  • An arc is minted only when its witnessed entry exists, and an exchange completes only when both sides of it stand in the record.
  • Clearing against one public history is what keeps a growing network honest without a central office deciding what counts.

What is available today is the founding release itself, which carries the node software behind each of these instruments, together with the Ask ΛRC demonstration. The network has not opened yet, and no units have been issued. When it opens, earning is live from the first settled entry under the terms above, and the bridge to value outside the network follows as its own governed act. Nothing is for sale. The mechanics are published now so that anyone considering the platform can study exactly how earning and exchange will work before the opening.