The Epistemic Standard Economy is an economic model based on the value of the "proof of work" earned through participation in public Distributed Computing Networks (DCN) - resulting in discoveries of new scientific knowledge[1]
(all research results - positive or negative - are permanently archived within Big Data Objects and publicly available).
Participants (individuals or teams) contribute their Mobile Devices, Personal Computers, or Leased Cloud Computing Time (even individual time) to publicly Distributed Computing Projects, Grid Computing Projects, Open Source Research and Games with a Purpose (GWAP):
Participants (individuals or teams) are subsequently compensated via secure digital cryptocurrency (based on the Bitcoin protocol):
Historical background on Research Results: Universities and Institutes leveraging DCN projects are legally bound to sell patents[2] based on the resulting research data per the Bayh–Dole Act of 1980 (US only) to private industry. They are not obligated to compensate DCN participants who, up until 2008 (Comparing CureCoin to EVGA Bucks), participated purely philanthropically. It was not until 2014 that a Secondary Crypto-Currency Market was created as Proof of Work (PoW) for this valuable Research work.
Participation creates a Peer to Peer (P2P), Secondary Market with digital currency used for commerce outside the Fiat-based Macroeconomic model:
- The Epistemic Standard Economy is less susceptible to inflation (in fact it is disinflationary by nature)
- Broad public adoption creates a demand for the currency, thereby increasing network activity and competition through increased difficulty
- Matching difficulty is introduced by Distributed Computing Projects themselves, as they adjust for increased computational capacity due to Moore's law
- Higher competition levels yield higher computational output of the network:
- Dramatically increasing the amount of research data produced on behalf of participating Universities, and Institutes
- Individuals are curtailed from "cornering the market" through difficulty induced by broad public participation
- Participants utilize off-the-shelf CPU and GPU hardware, making the model universally viable (anyone with a computer can participate at some tier)
- Unlike Bitcoin mining, there are no commercially available ASICs for Distributed Computing (as of the writing of this article)
- Optimally, the activity generates revenue covering participant's equipment and electricity costs, along with a residual income stream[3]
- Residual income can be used for:
- Participant's living expenses (depending on level of participation)
- As part of an investment portfolio
- Underwriting New Research!
- Donating to charitable causes
- Underwrite incentive programs to grow research participation and increase currency adoption.
- Using Rewarded Giving & Cause Marketing models (coupons & discounts on goods & services)
- “Safety in numbers” - large number of participants provides resistance to centralized mining
Revenue enhances participation in a transparent economic network, valued entirely in Proof of Work on Scientific Big Data Objects
- Cost of DCN projects are distributed across thousands to millions of individuals and organizations
- Estimated costs to DCN participants equal less than 50% of the equivalent in leased Super-computing time
- Fewer Single Points of Failure, time sharing or maintenance induced down time
- Systems are less prone to geo-political and power grid instability
- DCNs are the world’s fastest computing entities (over 40 PetaFLOPS of computing power generated daily by Folding@Home alone)
- With the computational power of the modern Smartphones (est 800 million Android phones as of 2014[4])
- 2 million Android phones, merely 0.25% of all Android phones, can generate 40 PetaFLOPS of computational power[5]
- thus nearly doubling the output of Folding@Home as of Jan 14, 2015.
Valuation of the Digital Currency is Determined By:
Investment Details:
- Investors purchase and trade Epistemic Currency based on Project's Value to Humanity:
Epistemic Currencies, like Curecoin and Gridcoin, has the potential to transcend speculation:
- While adhering to Moore's Law, their Proof of Work is largely independent of the Bitcoin protocol.
- Participation is broadly inclusive (from individual mobile devices in the developing world, to organizations leveraging cloud services)
- DCN point-award systems have existed since the year 2000, nine years longer than "bitcoin" or the Bitcoin protocol.
- However, the Bitcoin protocol is crucial to the abstracted layers of secure monetization, competition, and scarcity.
Means of Commerce and Exchange:
Risks to the Value of the Network:
- Although unlikely, some Distributed Computing Problems could be resolved using next generation Quantum computers, or other revelations leveraging evolutionary information and neural networks.[6]
- Any advancements will surely open new challenges for Distributed Computing, and are NOT likely to diminish the work already completed, or affect the backlog of tasks designed for CPU and GPU technology of the time
Why Epistemic Standard?:
For further reading on "Epistemic" arguments, see Plato and Socrates on the "The Value of Knowledge"...[7]
References[edit]
- Epistemic from the Greek word for knowledge - Merriam Webster’s
- "Patent Ownership and Federal Research and Development (R&D): A Discussion on the Bayh-Dole Act and the Stevenson-Wydler Act", United States Congressional Research Service, December 11, 2000
- See Also Passive Income
- "Study says 800 million Android smartphones, 300 million iPhones in active use by December 2013" - VentureBeat
- Folding@Home turns Xperia phones into Alzheimer researchers" - SlashGear
- Leveraging evolutionary information and neural networks for Protein Folding
- Pritchard, Duncan and Turri, John, "The Value of Knowledge", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
- Winsberg, Eric, "Computer Simulations in Science", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)