I was challenged tonight in an email to explore where VRM and Open Money concepts may intersect.
Here are my notes:
- To make personal data a currency, you would have to issue redeemable promises to deliver personal data to anyone “holding” the promise, say your location.
- You may want to assign circulation rules to your currency so that it has no value outside of your social network (and you don’t end up being stalked by strangers).
- Until redeemed by you the issuer, the currency could be exchanged for goods/services.
- After redeeming the promise i.e. obtaining the data from the currency issuer, the promise would no longer have any value.
- To have significant value, the currency would have to be issued by you (and ideally, certified by other parties).
- You may want to provide foreign exchange services.
Of course, I haven’t answered the key question yet: why anyone would want to make their personal data a currency.