---
# System prepended metadata

title: ESP’s Relation to Existing Distributed Ledger Technologies
tags: [What is the Economic Space Protocol?]

---

# ESP’s Relation to Existing Distributed Ledger Technologies

Our project is fundamentally focused on designing a new economic computational substrate – a richer grammar and set of protocols for defining, computing, and coordinating value. By value we refer to a network-defined way of determining the worth of its units of output and how the network’s net surplus of output value is to be distributed within the network. While our designs are architecturally biased towards distributed computation, specific implementations may pragmatically leverage existing technologies at different stages.


## Not a Blockchain


We are not primarily focused on building a new “Layer 1” consensus mechanism or a general-purpose global blockchain in the traditional sense. Our core innovation lies in the Economic Space Protocol (ESP), which is a higher-order economic grammar and set of coordination primitives.


ESP is designed to define how economic agents and spaces interact and compute value, which is a different layer of concern than how transactions are ordered or how state is globally agreed upon.

While the long-term vision for ESP implies a truly distributed computational substrate that could be considered "Layer 1" in terms of foundational economic logic, our initial focus is on deploying the economic protocols themselves, which could potentially utilize existing L1s for specific functions.


## Relation to Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, etc.

Think of ESP as an economic operating system or a domain-specific language for economic coordination. 

* It is implementation agnostic (in principle): The ESP grammar and the logic of a Postcapitalist Space Drive (PSD), like the ECSA Drive, could theoretically be implemented on various computational substrates. For instance, the ECSA Liquidity Medium (NLM) and the NLI (cECSA) token are likely to be implemented as smart contracts on a mature platform like Ethereum initially, to leverage its security, liquidity, and network effects.
* Semantic Mismatch & Limitations: However, implementing the full vision of ESP – with its emphasis on state locality, temporal independence for many operations within a PSD, and computationally rich, potentially private interactions – directly onto a single, globally synchronous blockchain like Ethereum would be inefficient, costly, and would not take full advantage of ESP's design. Current blockchains are optimized for global state consensus of relatively simple transactional logic, not the complex, context-specific economic calculations, and network spanning computation that the ESP enables from the edge.
* Cosmos & AppChains: Architectures like Cosmos (with its focus on application-specific blockchains) are conceptually closer to the idea of distinct Economic Spaces (PSDs) having their own specialized logic. ESP could provide the economic interoperability grammar between such sovereign spaces, going beyond simple asset transfers.
* Our focus: Our primary R&D is on the economic protocol layer itself, not the underlying consensus mechanism. We are architecting for a future where economic logic can be deployed and interoperate across diverse, potentially heterogeneous computational environments.

## Is ESP an "Application Layer" protocol?

From the perspective of an existing “L1” blockchain like Ethereum, you could initially view specific ECSA components (like the NLM or a simplified PSD) as applications built on top.

However, ESP's ambition is more foundational. It aims to define the rules of economic interaction themselves. In a fully realized ecsa ecosystem, ESP would be the fundamental protocol defining the economic environment, and other blockchains or computational substrates might be seen as providing lower-level services (like consensus or data availability) to ESP-native economic spaces.

The key is that ESP pushes the economic computational logic and agency to the edge (to the PSDs and agents), rather than having it dictated by the base-layer blockchain's limited monetary grammar.

## How does ESP handle state, security, and consensus, if it is not a blockchain?


This is a core area of our research and design. The approach is nuanced:
* Local State & Computation within PSDs: Many operations within a specific Economic Space (PSD) can be managed with local state and consensus among the participating agents of that space, leveraging the ESP grammar for internal consistency. Not all economic interactions require global, immutable consensus.
* Global Coordination via ESP: ESP provides the protocols for inter-space coordination, value attribution, and the propagation of effects across the network. This might involve different consistency models depending on the interaction.
* Leveraging External Layers (Pragmatically): For certain critical functions requiring high security and global finality (e.g., the NLI (cECSA) ledger, core NLM operations, anchoring cross-PSD commitments), ECSA designs could interface with existing secure blockchains as a settlement or notary layer.
* Future Substrates: Our vision anticipates the emergence and development of distributed computational substrates that are better optimized for hosting ESP's rich semantics and supporting true peer-to-peer economic computation across a network of sovereign but interoperable spaces. This is right now a research direction, not the immediate product.

## How is this different from "just building a complex smart contract system on Ethereum or Solana"?

The difference is fundamental and lies in the point of departure and the semantic depth:
* Smart Contract Systems (Typically): Start with Ethereum's (or another L1's) existing computational model (EVM, accounts, gas, global state) and build applications within those constraints. The underlying economic grammar is still largely that of the base L1 (e.g., asset transfer, simple logic).
* ECSA (ESP/PSD/NLM): Starts by designing a new economic grammar and computational logic from first principles, focused on enabling specific types of economic agency and value coordination (Performances, Staking, U-optimization, Distributed Credit). It then considers how to best implement this logic.
* Beyond State Replication: While a smart contract replicates state, ESP aims to enable networks to compute their own economic reality based on richer inputs and programmable rules. It's about computational sovereignty for economic spaces, not just shared data.
* Scalability & Cost: The full richness of ESP and complex PSDs would be prohibitively expensive and unscalable if forced entirely onto a monolithic L1. ESP is designed with the understanding that much economic computation can and should be local first and distributed, with the protocol ensuring coherent interaction.

Where does the "distributed" part come in if initial components can run on e.g. Ethereum?

The "distributed" nature is multi-layered:
* Organizational & Governance: The economic logic effectively encodes distributed governance and community participation.
* Computational Logic (ESP/PSD): The logic itself is designed for distributed execution and agency at the edge, even if an initial host environment is more centralized.
* Agent Interaction: Agents interact peer-to-peer based on ESP rules, even if their state updates are ultimately settled on a shared ledger.
* Phased Decentralization of Substrate: The pragmatic use of Ethereum for initial components like the NLM is a bootstrapping strategy. 

*The roadmap leads towards deploying more complex ESP/PSD functionalities on substrates that better support their inherently distributed computational model. The design implies full distribution, and it's conceived from the get go with this goal in mind; the implementation is phased.*

## Conclusion


Open sourcing economic agency is an ambitious project focused on upgrading the computational substrate of our economy. While we will pragmatically use existing technologies like Ethereum for specific initial components (e.g., the NLI (cECSA) and NLM), our core research and development is focused on the Economic Space Protocol (ESP) as a new, higher-order grammar for economic coordination. This protocol is designed to eventually enable a truly distributed network of interoperable economic spaces, moving beyond the limitations of current blockchain architectures. Investing in cECSA is investing in the first steps of realizing this vision.

## A Comparing Table: ESP and Typical Blockchain Architecture 

![FC83CC86-55BE-450C-AC3D-14F949E8883C](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rkeJca7Igl.jpg)




In summa: on the economic protocol level, ESP's shift from a monolithic global ledger to a network of interoperable economic spaces yields distinct advantages:
* Enhanced Scalability: By localizing computation and communication, ESP avoids global bottlenecks inherent in single-chain architectures.
* Privacy by Design: Interactions within Economic Spaces can remain private by default, with sharing managed explicitly via protocol, unlike inherently public ledgers.
* Economic Equality & Efficiency: Avoiding globally contested blockspace leads to more predictable, context-dependent coordination costs and reduced fees, fostering fairer access.
* True Flexibility & Agency: With ESP, no single "king" token or base-layer logic dictates all possibilities. Networks gain the full API to design and evolve their own bespoke economies and value systems.


