Plain. Thesis in Plain Language

Jason St George. "Plain. Thesis in Plain Language" in Next‑Gen Store of Value: Privacy, Proofs, Compute. Version v1.0. /v/1.0/read/front-matter/plain-language/

Thesis in Plain Language

The core claim: Three cryptographic capacities—Privacy (censorship-resistant settlement), Proofs (portable attestations), and Compute (verified useful work)—can function as monetary primitives for a dense digital civilization. Networks that supply these capacities at scale, with cheap public verification, can earn a durable store-of-value premium.

The mechanism: Value accrues to holders of triad assets (Work Credits, network tokens) through four channels: (1) fees paid in the native asset for proof generation, privacy settlement, and verified compute; (2) burns that permanently remove supply when capacity is consumed; (3) required collateral for provers, routers, and liquidity providers; and (4) scarcity constraints tied to energy and hardware, not fiat decree. Demand for these capacities is structural—AI needs verified compute, commerce needs private settlement, trust needs proofs—so fee revenue persists through cycles.

The falsifiable test: If VerifyPrice (verification cost) stays low, VerifyReach (reachability under censorship) stays high, and VerifySettle (settlement success and refund safety) remains robust, the thesis holds. If any of these degrade, the asset becomes just another platform IOU.

Angle: set the stakes; define the triad and the three angles.

The thesis examines the triad from three complementary angles:

• Angle 1 – Monetary: the triad (Privacy, Proofs, Compute) as a next-gen store of value (Private Money & AI Money).
• Angle 2 – Stack: the seven-layer cypherpunk stack that actually supplies these capacities.
• Angle 3 – Telemetry & Governance: VerifyPrice/Reach/Settle + ops as the thing that keeps “repression-resilient neutrality” falsifiable.

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