§11. Monetary Design Space: ZK Money, AI Money, Hybrid Instruments

Jason St George. "§11. Monetary Design Space: ZK Money, AI Money, Hybrid Instruments" in Next‑Gen Store of Value: Privacy, Proofs, Compute. Version v1.0. /v/1.0/read/part-ii/11-monetary-design-space/

§11. Monetary design space: ZK Money, AI Money, hybrid instruments

Once Work Credits exist as a generic mechanism for binding work to claims, we can sketch the design space of monetary instruments built on top of the triad.

11.1 ZK Money

ZK Money instruments primarily reference Privacy + Proofs:

• Claims on shielded settlement capacity (corridor LP positions, privacy‑rail credits).
• Claims on zero‑knowledge proof capacity (e.g., SNARK/STARK service tiers).

They behave like:

• Private Money: bearer‑like, censorship‑resistant settlement rights.
• Plus Truth Money: bundled attestations of compliant behavior (e.g., “this payroll stream satisfies policy X without revealing identities”).

ZK Money is attractive to:

• Treasuries under repression.
• Regulated actors who need both privacy and attestable compliance.
• Individuals who want “cash‑like” assets in digital form.

11.2 AI Money

AI Money instruments primarily reference Compute + Proofs:

• Claims on verified FLOPs.
• Futures on model‑specific inference capacity with proof guarantees.
• Equity‑like positions in proof factories whose output is standardized, verified compute.

They are attractive to:

• AI labs and application builders wanting hedges against compute shortage.
• Investors who believe “AI demand will outlive this particular model cycle.”

11.3 Hybrid instruments

Hybrids reference all three legs:

• Triad baskets. Index‑like instruments backed by diversified Work Credits across privacy, proof, and compute workloads.

• Corridor‑linked AI Money. Instruments that couple private settlement rights with AI inference capacity (e.g., “pay for inference over private channels with audited receipts”).

• Agent treasuries. On‑chain agents that hold combinations of ZK Money and AI Money to fund their own operation (paying for compute, proving their actions, and routing private payments).

The key design constraint is always the same: claims must stay tightly coupled to verifiable work and capacity, not to governance mood or marketing narrative. That is what differentiates these from “yet another governance token.”

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