The Finternet: Building a universal network for value

Technologists, economists and financial innovators have for years longed for an “Internet of Value” — an interconnected web of digitally represented assets, rights and claims, where provenance is verifiable, rights are programmable, and value can be transacted as effortlessly as sending a text or email. This vision goes beyond mere ownership and imagines a world where the ability to prove, transfer and act on claims, financial or otherwise, is universal and seamless.

This ambition has deep roots. Long before the emergence of today’s digital financial systems, pioneers like Dee Hock — who founded Visa as a decentralized, interoperable network of financial institutions — envisioned systems in which authority and coordination emerged not from hierarchy, but from distributed yet purpose-aligned design. His vision anticipated structures where power and governance were not concentrated, but dispersed across all participants; where entities could compete independently, yet cooperate when needed for the good of the whole.