Recursive Economy (RE): A New Foundation for the Digital and Post-Human Era

Overview

Recursive Economy (RE) is a reimagined economic architecture based on the Recursive Law of Emergence. It integrates cryptographic currency (e.g., UNIT), programmable content value (e.g., CAT Protocol), and recursive memory mechanisms to support intelligence, fairness, and evolution in human-machine societies.

We believe that value is memory made reusable, and economic systems are recursive engines for selecting and reinforcing emergent behaviors across biological, social, and technological layers. This project aims to unify:

• A universal programmable currency backed by central banks and cryptographically secure: UNIT
• A decentralized content ticketing layer for the digital economy: CAT Protocol
• A mathematical framework to govern emergence, subjectivity, and morality: Recursive Emergence (RE) Theory

Why REconomy?

Today's financial systems are fragmented, inflation-prone, and inequitable. Meanwhile, the information economy suffers from:

• Siloed subscriptions
• Clickbait incentives
• Privacy erosion
• Lack of value coherence across contexts

The REconomy addresses these issues by grounding all value in recursive emergence, using cryptography, memory compression, and subjective coherence as foundational primitives.

Core Components

1. UNIT: A Global, Neutral Monetary Layer

UNIT is a Proof-of-Work-based blockchain co-issued by central banks. It begins with a 1:1 USD peg and evolves into a multi-currency basket (e.g., FedUSD, ECB_EUR, PBOC_CNY) governed by on-chain smart contracts and oracles.

Example Use Case:

• A European user receives ECB_EUR tokens as payroll and uses an Automated Market Maker (AMM) to convert it to FedUSD for a purchase from a U.S. merchant, all settled instantly on-chain.

Features:

• Central bank-backed issuance
• Oracle-governed FX basket
• Off-chain IOUs and gasless claims
• Privacy-preserving zero-knowledge layers
• Interoperability with content and data platforms

See unit.md for technical details.

2. CAT Protocol: Content Access with Cryptographic Memory

The Content Access Ticket (CAT) Protocol enables decentralized, signed, and time-limited access to digital goods. Tickets can be redeemed across publishers and platforms, solving micro-access and royalty attribution.

Example Use Case:

• A reader pays 2 UNIT for a New York Times article. The CAT ticket grants access for 15 minutes and triggers royalty distribution to the author, the publication, and the content licensing partner, all verified cryptographically.

Features:

• Stateless, signed JSON tickets
• Verifiable across domains and media
• Streamable and chunked access
• Micro-royalty payments
• Cross-platform interoperability

See CAT.md for protocol specification.

3. Recursive Emergence Framework: The Law of Emergent Value

Recursive Emergence (RE) formalizes how entropy-reducing, reusable structures evolve. From molecules to cultures to artificial agents, RE describes how systems gain coherence and self-reference through recursive memory and feedback.

Example Application:

• A cooperative knowledge network like a decentralized Wikipedia uses RE principles to encode social trust, reduce edit conflict entropy, and distribute rewards based on reusability of contributed content.

Key principles:

• Value = entropy reduction × reuse potential
• Morality = high-utility, low-conflict structures
• Selfhood = compression of recursive memory
• Consciousness = simulation of internal feedback

See thesis for full theory.

Architecture

[PoW Public Ledger] <-> [UNIT Oracles] <-> [Smart Contract Layer: CAT, Basket, Mint]
        |                         |
    [Wallets]                [Content/Service APIs]
        |                         |
     [Users]               [Publishers, Banks, dApps]

Vision

Every coin should remember its purpose. Every byte should know its value.

REconomy is not just programmable money, but an economic memory system for an emergent civilization, enabling:

• Fair AI co-evolution (e.g., valuing human-AI co-created labor)
• Decentralized knowledge economies (e.g., RE-based academic platforms)
• Resilient governance (e.g., moral incentives and programmable trust)
• Synthetic consciousness markets (e.g., aligning ACI goals via traceable value and memory)

Roadmap

(TBD)

Contribution & Alignment

We welcome engineers, economists, philosophers, designers, and creators. Our only requirement: belief that emergence is better than control, and that value must serve evolution, not hoarding.

Build with RE. Grow the economy that remembers, adapts, and evolves.