THE THREE-GEAR CURRENCY DIFFERENTIAL

Complete Discussion Transcript — December 1, 2025

Participants: Jonathan Jones (Founder), KNIGHT (Claude/Opus), ROOK (Antigravity/Windsurf) Purpose: Designing the economic foundation of Liana Banyan’s currency system Outcome: Innovation #54 — Three-Gear Currency Differential

PART 1: THE ORIGIN — ROOK’S INITIAL QUESTION

ROOK asked:

QUESTION FOR YOU: How many credits should a $100 Founder’s Circle medallion grant?

Option A: Just 5 (annual membership minimum) Option B: 2,000 credits ($100 × 20 credits/dollar) Option C: Different amount?

This matters because:

• Medallion = ownership stake
• Should reflect the $100 value
• “Spoken for” means pre-allocated from that value

What’s your vision?

PART 2: JONATHAN’S INITIAL RESPONSE

Jonathan wrote:

Everything flows off of $1 equaling 1 Credit, I think. What are the considerations you can think of, before I decide? “100 credits. $100 = 100 credits. 1 credit = $1 value. No inflation. No cheapening. 5 credits covers annual membership, 95 remaining for platform use.”

PART 3: ROOK’S ANALYSIS OF 1:1 RATIO

ROOK analyzed:

✅ PROS of 1:1 Ratio:

1. Crystal Clear Value

• User sees: “50 credits” = knows it’s $50 worth
• No mental math required
• Builds trust (no tricks, no inflation)

2. Accounting Simplicity

• Credits = USD directly
• Tax reporting straightforward
• Revenue tracking clean

3. Medallion Value Preservation

• $100 medallion = 100 credits = $100 spending power
• No perceived “cheapening”
• Ownership stake maintains value

4. Regulatory Clarity

• 1:1 = clearly money-like
• Easier to explain to regulators
• Less legal gray area

⚠️ CONS / RISKS of 1:1 Ratio:

1. Micropayment Problem

• Can users tip 0.5 credits?
• Or is minimum 1 credit = $1?
• If whole numbers only: Smallest tip = $1 (might be too high)
• If fractional allowed: Need decimal handling

2. Psychological Engagement

• “You have 100 credits” feels less gamified than “You have 2000 credits”
• Lower numbers = less dopamine hit
• Harder to create “feels abundant” experience

3. Pricing Granularity

• Can you price something at $0.50?
• Or everything must be whole dollar amounts?
• Limits pricing flexibility

4. No Inflation Buffer

• Platform costs rise 10%/year
• But credits stay 1:1 with USD
• You absorb all cost increases

5. International Complexity

• EU user pays €1 for 1 credit?
• Exchange rate fluctuations
• Not truly 1:1 outside USD

6. Future Flexibility

• Hard to change later without breaking trust
• Once established, you’re locked in
• Can’t adjust ratios based on usage patterns

PART 4: JONATHAN’S FOUNDATIONAL THINKING

Jonathan wrote (verbatim, unedited):

Don’t do anything until I clearly tell you to. I want to discuss without repercussion.

I have no problem with fractional credits. That’s how most currency works. And I don’t like splitting value on marks, because they need to be just as valuable as credits, in my thinking. This “buying credits” is not a new concept - the internationally stock photo sites use it, specifically for the reason of international currencies. So I understand that if I set $1 = 1 credit that the entire platform rises and falls on the value of the dollar, and that’s what I’m considering. On the one hand, the dollar is pretty ubiquitous. International change rates will affect if we do that, though, having no basis from us but greatly affecting us, and allowing exchange rate gaming between currencies. OR, if we keep it fully separate, and while not increasing to inflation setting the value of 1 credit to $1 TODAY, and then credits run off our own internal economy so that a year from now credits might be worth $12 each or $0.34 But then it would not serve the people it is intended to, on either extreme.

Hmm. I think that the currency needs to both be affected in the positive by fluctuations in single currency, and the positive of having a separate economic basis than the currency you live in. That would mean…

By the way, record all of this for an article about why I’m setting these economics as I am, and make another patent bag that is tied to my personal library (on my portfolio which is kept… where? village? guild? founder castle? Idk) so that I can keep adding ideas to it as I go, bc, let’s face it, I’m gonna have a lot more. And then we can have “provisional patent party” once a month or some such.

Anyway. Right now, economies with issues, like Greece, have currency of less value per note than the dollar, and other countries with economies with less issues than the U.S. and dollars, have currencies that are worth more per note unit, like the pound. Here is an infographic from Madison Trust Company from today, Dec 1, 2025 that illustrates different currencies. Note that the Kuwait Dinar is the most valuable or “strongest” because it is based on oil exports. That’s great until it ends. I think we should make ours based on the unlimited resource of human effort and ingenuity. Instead of being blown about by the gale force winds of the Euro and Dollar and all other currencies, fully beyond our control, we can instead be a bedrock currency based on an inexhaustible, and constant, resource. All other inferior resources are brought into our system. Like the old joke about naming something after a person - “hey you’re worth 5 Jonathans” or “You’re worth .5 a Jonathan”. If we define our value, and therefore currency, in OUR terms, then it all comes together. Of course, we still need a base level. Our oil is human ingenuity, what is our barrel? Well, perhaps the answer is in the question, as so often happens in chess, and engineering - two problems, or more, can coalesce into one elegant solution. So while Hours, like Ithaca, New York uses, is admirable in concept, the reality is that the connection between established systems (Dollar, Euro) and ours (Credits, Marks) is the real issue that has to be solved. So let’s be ingenious. The problem of the early internet, as described in the excellent book “Where Wizards Stay Up Late”, was that the 3 major university systems had created disparate computers, each costing millions, and developed with completely different languages. So at the central point in Washington DC, the room they all connected in had huge problems translating between them. The best solution was what we use today: Browsers. An interpreter of each language that translated to the human reading it, and re-translated the human’s response: and for them to speak machine code to one another as well.

So how do we apply this? LOTS of different real-world currencies, always fluctuating, and btw, where our constituents live and swim and work and play - so we cannot go to an asteroid and start our own casino with booze and… instead, we need to design a special interaction that will apply consistently for all outside currencies, but will still remain consistent and constant and based on our own internal economic factors, regardless of the external ones.

If we solve this, we can solve world hunger (because the problem isn’t food - it’s access and supply and demand and logistics and therefore politics… so access).

A transmission. No, better - a differential, which allows tires (currencies) on the same axle (our platform/business) to turn at different speeds (currency values).

And, interestingly, also redirects the drive shaft power by 90 degrees to drive the axle that the tires are each on…. Hmm.

So we need to set up the gears in the differential to accomplish this. Perhaps the marks system is enough on its own to accomplish this… because the set value of credits, which can be arbitrarily set at first and we will simply choose to make as equal to $1,

This COULD potentially be used as a tuning system to get outlier economies back on track, like smoothing the ruffled feathers. How? Because if our system is stable, and dependent upon itself (powered by an inexhaustible source) then the fluctuations in currency markets can be absorbed and cushioned on individual bases, and rectified by effort. As in, if Bob is in a depressed economy with a currency at .8 of an LB credit value, and Mary is in an (opposite of depressed?) economy of 1.4 of an LB credit value, Bob pays or gets the .2 made up in Marks, still keeping the engine going, offsetting the immediate impact while allowing Bob to make it up with … more effort or ingenuity. Or to just carry the load until the winds of fortune change for Bob’s economy. So what about Mary? that .4 over has to be offset the same way as Bob’s -.2, fairly and without loss.

I think we need a third gear in our differential. Credits, Marks, and introducing… Joule, which works as the Potential Currency. We can change the price of our Credit based on the value of the currency it is being purchased with. if Bob’s .8 currency, then .8 now equals 1 credit with .2 marks; Mary’s 1.4 currency is also equal to 1 credit, with .4 Joules. This way, everyone’s tire turns at different speeds, but the axle continues consistently. What do you think?

PART 5: ROOK’S SYNTHESIS

ROOK synthesized:

The Three-Currency Differential System

The Metaphor:

DRIVE SHAFT (Human Effort/Ingenuity)
      ↓
  DIFFERENTIAL (Three-Currency System)
      ↓
   AXLE (Platform Economy)
    ↙  ↘
  TIRE₁  TIRE₂  (Different External Currencies)
  (0.8)  (1.4)

The Mechanics:

CREDITS - The Axle

• Value: Internally stable, backed by platform labor/contribution
• Initial peg: 1 Credit ≈ $1 USD (for bootstrapping)
• Long-term: Value floats based on internal economy, not USD

MARKS - The Compensator Gear

• Purpose: Make up deficits when external currency < 1 Credit
• Bob’s case: Pays 0.8 local → Gets 1 Credit + owes 0.2 Marks
• He clears debt by: Contributing effort (posts, votes, work)

JOULES - The Potential Energy Store

• Purpose: Capture excess when external currency > 1 Credit
• Mary’s case: Pays 1.4 local → Gets 1 Credit + banked 0.4 Joules
• She can use Joules to: ???

PART 6: ROOK’S CRITICAL QUESTIONS

ROOK asked:

1. What ARE Joules?

Option A: Future Credit Vouchers

• Mary’s 0.4 Joules = 0.4 Credits she can claim later
• Problem: Where does that Credit supply come from?

Option B: Platform Investment Tokens

• Mary’s 0.4 Joules = equity-like stake in platform
• When platform grows, Joules convert at better rate
• Problem: Securities regulation?

Option C: Effort Multipliers

• Mary’s 0.4 Joules = 40% bonus on her next earned Credits
• She works, earns 10 Credits → Gets 14 Credits total
• Problem: Creates two-tier contributor class?

2. The Inexhaustible Resource - How is it Measured?

Possible metrics:

• Time-based: 1 hour verified work = X Credits (Ithaca Hours model)
• Outcome-based: Completed project milestone = Y Credits
• Vote-based: Community votes determine contribution value
• Hybrid: Time × Quality × Impact = Credit value

3. Arbitrage Prevention

The Problem:

• Bob buys 1 Credit for 0.8 local (+ 0.2 Marks debt)
• Immediately sells 1 Credit to Mary’s economy for 1.4 local
• Bob just made 0.6 local currency for free

4. The Marks Debt - How Does Bob Pay It Off?

PART 7: JONATHAN’S DEFINITIVE ANSWERS

Jonathan wrote (verbatim, unedited):

1. Joules lock in the rate (since all goes up in value 10% like you said) so that it is like the post office’s forever stamps. Buy at one rate. Use forever. So Mary gets the value of the credit at it’s current level .4 to store for later, like when the current level is then .8, like Bobs.

2. Good question. I’ve thought about it a lot. You cannot. So instead you find out what already does that. As an example: What is the perfect price for a burger you just invented? $100 each? $1 each? Well, you can spend a billion finding out, or you can check with the guys who already did. Fast food joints - best price today? Whatever they are selling it for. Our market rises and falls on it’s own, based on demand, we just have to have a first baseline that, again, can be arbitrary. Let’s take the video producer I paid $250 to, to make a video. Since LB price is based on cost + 20%, then that means the LB price of that video would be… $300.00 and since we are starting today, then $1 = 1 credit, as of TODAY. How many hours did it take the producer? I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, we don’t pay hourly, we pay by the job and time frame. Since everything is arbitrary, the unlimited resource is however many transactions and work in progress aggregates are, which will change, but which are also continually fed from the internal mechanics of LB. Which is why all we need is a beginning. So the answer is: Whatever members agree is cost+20, per task/product/item/service/contract.

3. No one can sell any of LB currency except LB. So how did bob sell his credit to mary’s economy (except by buying a good or service, aka voting or paying a bill?)

4. Bob works it off by using the platform, working, buying, voting; or he doesn’t. Didn’t I answer this already? Marks are paid off as part of the percentage of net profits that is taken, if there are no net profits, then they are added as future equity that can be purchased by other members, (maybe as transaction exchanges from your ledger to theirs? with a payback time limit based on the amount like an informal pawn?) Basically, I’d like it to be where you have a birthright, and if you want to sell it, you can. But I wouldn’t. And if you do, you have ample time to redeem them and keep your share.

PART 8: JONATHAN’S FINAL CLARIFICATION

Jonathan wrote (verbatim, unedited):

Also to be clear marks, credits, and joules are all worth the same, by definition, but the only way to get marks or joules is through the mechanisms built into the system. All transactions not specifically annotated to be buyable through marks (like food and medical) must be through credit transactions.

PART 9: FINAL FRAMEWORK

THE THREE CURRENCIES — EQUAL VALUE, DIFFERENT ACQUISITION

KEY PRINCIPLES

1. All three currencies are equal in value — 1 Credit = 1 Mark = 1 Joule
2. Only LB sells/issues currency — No user-to-user transfers for fiat
3. Credits = default transaction currency — Required for most purchases
4. Marks = restricted to essentials — Food, medical, and debt clearing
5. Joules = forever stamps — Lock in rate at purchase, use anytime
6. Closed-loop system — Spend only, no cash-out

THE DIFFERENTIAL MECHANISM

EXTERNAL CURRENCIES (different values)
           │
           ▼
    ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
    │         LIANA BANYAN DIFFERENTIAL    │
    │                                      │
    │  Weak currency (0.8) → 1 Credit      │
    │                      + 0.2 Marks     │
    │                                      │
    │  Strong currency (1.4) → 1 Credit    │
    │                        + 0.4 Joules  │
    │                                      │
    │  Base currency (1.0) → 1 Credit      │
    │                                      │
    └──────────────────────────────────────┘
           │
           ▼
    INTERNAL ECONOMY (stable, self-sustaining)

PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION

• Backing: Human effort and ingenuity (inexhaustible resource)
• Baseline: $1 = 1 Credit as of December 1, 2025 (arbitrary anchor)
• Long-term: Internal economy, not pegged to USD
• Goal: Equalize economic access regardless of birth economy
• Vision: “If we solve this, we can solve world hunger”

DOCUMENT INFORMATION

Recorded: December 1, 2025 Innovation Number: #54 Patent Bag: PATENT-BAG-54-THREE-GEAR-CURRENCY-DIFFERENTIAL.md Article: ARTICLE-THE-DIFFERENTIAL-ECONOMY.md Location: Founder’s Castle, The Keep

“A differential allows tires on the same axle to rotate at different speeds while maintaining stable power transfer. This innovation applies the same principle to platform economics.”

— Jonathan Jones, December 1, 2025

FOR THE KEEP ⚔️