NUG - the business

Walther Højgaard Diechmann -

With the core implementation down we can turn our attention to the business side of things: the organizational considerations and the business model

Organizational considerations

Affording a possibly global tracking of asset ownership will have to address issues like audit trail, accountability, verification, division of labor, antitrust

Audit trail

The NUG will have to afford an audit trail to introspect transactions. This tool probably will have to be a paid service in order to reduce the number of users wanting to 'follow the money' but idealistically anyone with a terminal and enough time on their hands should be able to 'walk the audit trail' all the way back to the very first transaction!

Accountability

Underwriters are the cornerstone within the NUG. They will have to be trusted with the right to declare assets, update assets, and retire them eventually. Constructs will have to be installed in order to secure their accountability. Underwriters will be able to "create wealth" and thus should be accessed thoroughly, and repeatedly!

Verification

One way of accessing underwriters will require auditing their modus operandi - how they do business. How do they verify the existence of users assets!?
In order to make good on threats of banning users that do not play nice but sells assets they do not have, try to lure assets from other users, etc, it will be necessary to identify every user beyond any doubt! Whether be it by some combination of biometrics, or otherwise.

Division of Labor

The way the Domain Name System is run could be the way to go! Delegating responsibility for supervising, controlling, validating, and verifying underwriters to national bodies will create a hierarchical structure

Antitrust

The NUG will protect itself from antitrust by being non-profit and allowing everyone access to its books.

Business model

The underwriters will be able to sell one basic service: controlling an asset, but the underwriters will eventually be able to do a lot more;

  • issue loans
  • issue insurances
  • offer escrows
  • etc

Services will be cheap (as it is really just software) but some customers will warrant personal service, better coverage, better security, faster services, etc.

Banks and other financial institutions are the obvious candidates to try to take control of this market, and with the trust invested in them by customers today, they probably will seize quite a large part of this market.