Free Information will lead to the Commoditization of Products, and will Enable an Information Currency!

If I can start by defining a word that I will need to use a lot, the word is “commodity”. A simple definition is a product or service with a known value around the world. Sometimes the definition gets into the closer aspect of how the products need to be similar or homogenous. This is to me one of those “true but not true” statements as
commodities are never really exactly the same. Coffee is a commodity and highly differentiated. So are corn, pigs, yellow grease, wheat and on and on. Also, even though corn or wheat or coffee or oil may have a commodity price per barrel or per pound or bushel or head, this does not mean that that will be exactly the selling price for each
transaction. So why is it necessary or important to have a commodity price? Commodity value and relative value information (to other products or in time) allows us to have a better understanding of the buying power of our currency. The technology of Item Banc is designed to provide valuation information and to commoditize products. Transaction sets related to price as products are exchanged is a different application.

Another objection is when one cannot understand the dollar as purely information. Even some monetary theorists rest on the concept of the dollar simply as “credit”. Though I
may agree that the dollar can function as credit, what it IS matters here, and it IS and has proven to BE information. The dollar has a value…is a value that changes relative to what it can buy. The dollar today, you could say, functionally gave you credit to buy that
cup of coffee selling for $1. The dollar tomorrow, maybe, might not give you credit to buy that SAME cup of coffee because now it costs $1.10. In our reality it seems that it is not the fault of the dollar— that it is the fault of the seller who raised the price from yesterday. But yet, from the perspective of a trader, or someone who is not used to using currency, it is evident that it is exactly the dollar that has changed because now it takes more of them to satisfy the owner of the coffee. An example may work here. If you took
ten eggs to the owner of the coffee yesterday and got the coffee, and today it took eleven, then there must be something less valuable about your eggs today relative to the value of
coffee than yesterday. So since we are so wired to measure the information about the value of goods and services based on a constant “1” dollar, we have been fooled into thinking that its value never changes. So how, then is the dollar information? Let’s go back to the eggs. When we had to pay one egg more then we had specific information
that eggs now are worth less relative to the value of coffee. If eggs were used to pay for everything, then we’d know a whole lot about the value of eggs relative to every kind of good and service. All that the eggs end up doing is providing information about value.
Yes, they function as credit to get coffee. But if we began to log the relative value of eggs compared to all kinds of goods every day and how this changes we would then know derived information, such as, if we traded eggs for pigs, then we might get a better deal by trading pigs for eggs. This information about relative value is so lost in our carrying of the dollar that we become washed up and only see the dollar as a vehicle for credit… its function… not how it gets there or if we should even use it!! It was to my benefit that some economics professor insisted on our universal definition of money in three parts:

Unit of Measure, Store of Value, and Medium of Exchange. So can the egg be a unit of measure, store of value and medium of exchange? Yes! Sure! Even an egg can provide information about relative value of goods and services. Now that we have experienced credit cards and exchange of goods and services based on a numbered and named account, we have already seen this piece of information related to held or stored value… information about value… I should say “relative value” as the dollar tomorrow may not buy that same cup of coffee.

The theory of information currency is first about a source of information related to relative values of goods and services that may be more dependable than the dollar. The information, in fact, would also be a credible source to create relative value to a currency.

This technology is built into the Item Banc. It seems to look like transactions could evolve from this set of information and would be trade based, if we define trade (or barter) as any transaction that does not use a currency. Or we could say that the
information available related to the relative value and availability of goods and services IS the currency. From this we can call it “information currency”.

Information Currency: The New Green
Virginia B. Robertson, 2011