Definition

WAS stands for Wealth Acknowledgment System. It is an information system designed to support, account and sustain circulation and growth of wealth? inside a community. It allow transactions to be assessed, accounted and balanced at all expressions of wealth (vital, emotional, mental, spiritual...), at individual and collective levels.

WAS avoids blind transactions that can be good for the contractors but can have a negative impact for the whole. Therefore WAS can be seen as a groundbreaking resolution of blind economies and the Tragedy of the Commons?.

Usage

WAS comes as an inseparable feature of open money. It allow participants to project, declare and track the wealth? that is created for the community, even in a transaction that involves only two individuals.

Wealth can manifest as time, expertise, hard cash, goods, support, energy, network connections, care... whatever represents value for the community in regards to its current context, needs, value system and projects.

Different steps

1. Offer or demand

Either a demand or an offer is entered into the information system. We give it the generic name of transaction. This initiates a dynamic tension inside the market place where mutual parties can meet, evaluate each other, and complete the transaction. Demander and offerer can be individuals, the community or its representatives.

2. Examination

The transaction is assessed by the demander, the offerer, and the community (or its representatives) in case the community is not already the offerer or the demander. Parties examine the wealth? this transaction is supposed to generate in regards to their needs, criteria, value system, ethical standards, etc. This evaluation can be done as a deliberation (inquiry of convergent interests) or negotiation (tension between divergent interests leading to a final compromise).

3. Agreement

The transaction can be accepted, refused or re-examined. When a final agreement is reached it becomes a contractual transaction that involves the offerer, the demander, and the community (if the community is not already the offerer or the demander). Deadlines, numbers, milestones, costs, deliveries, financial transaction are detailed in this agreement. Financial transaction can be – and will in most cases be – expressed in multi-currencies in the open money way: hard cash, community currencies, reputation points, etc...

4. Evaluation

Once the work is completed, parties check whether original expectations are met and the original contract respected. The level of generated wealth can be reevaluated negatively or positively like in phase 2, through a deliberation or negotiation process.

5. Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment is the conclusion and closing of the agreement. It seals the wealth? the community and the transactors agree to acknowledge for themselves. This level of wealth can be stable or may continue to evolve in the future. In the later case we enter in the wealth assessment? marketplace.

In most cases wealth is expressed in currencies. Currencies can be hard cash, open money, reputation points, etc.

The person or group of persons who have generated the wealth become the trustee of this piece of acknowledged wealth. Trustee but not owner, since the system is not based on ownership.

6. Redeeming

At anytime, depending on the original agreement and on monetary fluxes flowing inside or from outside the community, trusted wealth can be redeemed. Those who generated the wealth are paid in whatever currencies, as agreed in the acknowledgment phase. A redeemed wealth becomes a closed case that remains in the memory of the information system, i.e. in the collective memory of the community.

Reputation

Successful transactions allow the building of reputation for members of the community. Open money is just a breathing flux that goes positive and negative, and has no value by itself. Reputation is a currency that accumulates along successful transactions. Reputation is the fundamental asset of a person inside a community. For more information, see reputation system?.

What currencies?

WAS is in early alpha testing phase. First return on experience show the possible emergence of a multi-currency flow pattern.

In the first place early founders of the community have to build a sense of what is their sustainable income?, expressed in whatever currency, hard cash or open money.

Then each transaction will be built on qualitative and quantitative currencies expressing different planes of wealth (vital, emotional, mental, spiritual...):

• a sustainable income, which is the minimum fee based on a unit of time;
• a qualified income, made to acknowledge some specific qualities such as expertise or density of effort;
• a wealth income, which expresses the wealth generated for the community, independently of the time and work invested;
• a risk income, to assess the investment made by the one who did the work. A work invested one year before to support a project will not be compensated the same way as an immediately paid punctual work. Time is an unquestionable risk factor since uncertainty grows with it, but it's not the only one;
• a reputation income, which in most cases will be expressed in a hoardable currency.

Not all transactions will rely on all currencies listed above. Some transactions will only use a qualified income currency, others will bet everything on a risk income, others will combine sustainable income, wealth income, and reputation income, and so on. It mainly depends on the contract engaged between parties, on the wealth generated for the community.