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Don't Pay, Just DVI (Decentralized Virtual Infrastructure)

benjaminktamras 1y ago
What is a Payment? At its core, a payment is: “A transfer of value between two parties, confirmed by identity, intent, and authorization.” That’s it. Everything else — cards, terminals, signatures, pin codes, POS systems, receipts — are baggage. If we had to invent payments today, with: biometric presence mobile wallets crypto rails ambient computing BLE/NFC standards AI agents real-time FX routing ...would we ever ask people to stand still, swipe plastic, sign a receipt, and wait for a machine to beep? No. Everything else — cards, terminals, signatures, pin codes, POS systems, receipts — are baggage. If we had to invent payments today, with: biometric presence mobile wallets crypto rails ambient computing BLE/NFC standards AI agents real-time FX routing ...would we ever ask people to stand still, swipe plastic, sign a receipt, and wait for a machine to beep? No.
- Guestmodinfo 1y ago
  The world needs some contract settlement company. Where the payer i e. Customer deposits the money and also submits the details of work and quality of the work he needs from the contractor or the gig worker and then the gig worker completes the work and another company which we can call "quality assurance company" checks all the details if it is satisfied, it signals the contract settlement company to pay up the gig worker. Also the "quality assurance company" ppl can also educate the customer i.e. the payer and the contractor or the gig worker about the expectations of each other so both are on the same page. I feel it's a billion dollar business
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    You propose two niches: (1) “Contract settlement company”: this exists, it is called escrow. (2) ”Quality assurance company”: This also exists, though the names vary by domain. E.g., Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V). They aren't usually linked the way you describe, and its not super common for them to be employed on the same transactions, because they are not-cheap solutions to problems which don't always occur together, at levels that justify those solutions, where any one of them occurs. > I feel it's a billion dollar business IV&V alone (which is a subset of what you call “quality assurance company” is probably significantly bigger than that (large project IV&V I've seen cited at typically 5-10% of total project cost, and the total cost of large enterprise IT projects is... a lot.) And escrow (“contract settlement”) it probably closer to a $100 billion industry than $1 billion.
    - s1artibartfast 1y ago
      I think it would be interesting to explore the barriers to extending escrow and IVV to smaller and smaller transactions. The parent post mentions gig workers. At the extreme, you dont need escrow for a burger delivery because you already have coverage from multiple companies that will simply eat the charge as a cost business, namely the retailer and your credit card. As you point out, cost of verification is a major issue. Often times the customer cant even tell what a proper deliverable is, so how does a 3rd party. I wonder if there is a class of larger transactions where efficient verification is possible.
    - benjaminktamras 1y ago
      Totally agree—and that’s actually where DVI starts to break from legacy systems. Escrow + verification exists, yes—but it’s fragmented, manual, and reactive. What I’m proposing with DVI is a protocol layer that combines passive presence, programmable transaction rules, and autonomous settlement. Think less “escrow agent + QA team” and more: "If deliverable confirmed by X API + location + timestamp, auto-release funds." "If 2/3 validators approve within 24 hours, trigger split settlement to contractor + reviewer." "If transaction exceeds $150, route to identity-assured validator pool for audit." It’s programmable trust, not just third-party enforcement. And it opens the door to scalable contract validation without human bottlenecks. Appreciate the deep comments—this is exactly the level of feedback I was hoping for.
benjaminktamras 1y ago
Email me: benjaminktamras@gmail.com

What is a Payment? At its core, a payment is: “A transfer of value between two parties, confirmed by identity, intent, and authorization.” That’s it. Everything else — cards, terminals, signatures, pin codes, POS systems, receipts — are baggage. If we had to invent payments today, with: biometric presence mobile wallets crypto rails ambient computing BLE/NFC standards AI agents real-time FX routing ...would we ever ask people to stand still, swipe plastic, sign a receipt, and wait for a machine to beep? No. Everything else — cards, terminals, signatures, pin codes, POS systems, receipts — are baggage. If we had to invent payments today, with: biometric presence mobile wallets crypto rails ambient computing BLE/NFC standards AI agents real-time FX routing ...would we ever ask people to stand still, swipe plastic, sign a receipt, and wait for a machine to beep? No.

Guestmodinfo 1y ago
The world needs some contract settlement company. Where the payer i e. Customer deposits the money and also submits the details of work and quality of the work he needs from the contractor or the gig worker and then the gig worker completes the work and another company which we can call "quality assurance company" checks all the details if it is satisfied, it signals the contract settlement company to pay up the gig worker. Also the "quality assurance company" ppl can also educate the customer i.e. the payer and the contractor or the gig worker about the expectations of each other so both are on the same page. I feel it's a billion dollar business
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  You propose two niches: (1) “Contract settlement company”: this exists, it is called escrow. (2) ”Quality assurance company”: This also exists, though the names vary by domain. E.g., Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V). They aren't usually linked the way you describe, and its not super common for them to be employed on the same transactions, because they are not-cheap solutions to problems which don't always occur together, at levels that justify those solutions, where any one of them occurs. > I feel it's a billion dollar business IV&V alone (which is a subset of what you call “quality assurance company” is probably significantly bigger than that (large project IV&V I've seen cited at typically 5-10% of total project cost, and the total cost of large enterprise IT projects is... a lot.) And escrow (“contract settlement”) it probably closer to a $100 billion industry than $1 billion.
  - s1artibartfast 1y ago
    I think it would be interesting to explore the barriers to extending escrow and IVV to smaller and smaller transactions. The parent post mentions gig workers. At the extreme, you dont need escrow for a burger delivery because you already have coverage from multiple companies that will simply eat the charge as a cost business, namely the retailer and your credit card. As you point out, cost of verification is a major issue. Often times the customer cant even tell what a proper deliverable is, so how does a 3rd party. I wonder if there is a class of larger transactions where efficient verification is possible.
  - benjaminktamras 1y ago
    Totally agree—and that’s actually where DVI starts to break from legacy systems. Escrow + verification exists, yes—but it’s fragmented, manual, and reactive. What I’m proposing with DVI is a protocol layer that combines passive presence, programmable transaction rules, and autonomous settlement. Think less “escrow agent + QA team” and more: "If deliverable confirmed by X API + location + timestamp, auto-release funds." "If 2/3 validators approve within 24 hours, trigger split settlement to contractor + reviewer." "If transaction exceeds $150, route to identity-assured validator pool for audit." It’s programmable trust, not just third-party enforcement. And it opens the door to scalable contract validation without human bottlenecks. Appreciate the deep comments—this is exactly the level of feedback I was hoping for.

benjaminktamras 1y ago

Email me: benjaminktamras@gmail.com