Agency born in protocol

# Agency born in protocol ## The network-native economic agent: From market actors to network intelligences "Traditional economic protocols emerged from profound limitations: agents could only access local information, perform simple calculations, and maintain basic records. Market prices served as a vital but drastically compressed network signal, reducing the rich dimensionality of economic value to a single number. This was not just a practical limitation but a fundamental constraint on economic coordination. The emergence of computer networks as an economic substrate changes everything. Network-native economic agents can: * Access and verify distributed state * Perform complex network-wide calculations * Maintain provable protocol properties * Coordinate across multiple value dimensions This is not merely quantitative improvement in calculation speed or information access. It enables qualitatively new forms of economic coordination and value creation. To illustrate this transformation, consider how even simple network calculations reveal value invisible to traditional market mechanisms. [Example figure showing how network centrality reveals value that price alone misses]..." ### [An excerpt from the ecsa whitepaper (forthcoming, 2025): Network value protocols: Computing economic value through distributed algorithms] **“Agency born in protocol”** describes economic agency that is not assumed a priori or granted solely by external systems (like law or markets), but which emerges from and is defined by an agent's active participation and computational capabilities within a specific network protocol's economic grammar. Thinking of agency as "born in protocol" marks a fundamental shift from traditional economic or legal views. Legacy systems often treat agency as an inherent property of individuals (rational actors) or a status granted by external authorities (corporate personhood). We propose something different, native to the network environment itself. **Agency isn't inherent, it's enacted:** In the Economic Space Protocol (ESP), agency isn't a pre-existing right; it's the set of capabilities enacted through interaction with the protocol's grammar. Just as the rules of chess define what a piece can do, the ESP grammar defines the potential actions an agent can perform defining value metrics (U), issuing commitments (staking), extending credit, validating performances, participating in governance, computing relationships. Your agency is your capacity to engage meaningfully with these programmable verbs. **Defined by context, not universal:** This means agency is inherently context-dependent. The specific rules, available resources, and current state of the particular economic space (e.g., a specific PSD instance) you are participating in directly shape the scope and nature of your agency within that space. An agent's capabilities in a collaborative research network might differ vastly from those in a decentralized energy grid, even if both run on ESP. **Computational at its core:** Being "born in protocol" implies agency is fundamentally computational. It involves the capacity to process information according to the protocol's logic, to compute value based on shared metrics, and to execute actions that predictably alter the network state according to the embedded rules. This opens the door for non-human agents (like smart contracts, DAOs managing resources algorithmically, or AI agents) to possess genuine economic agency defined by their computational interaction within the protocol. **Identity emerges from interaction:** An agent's identity and reputation within a protocol-defined space are also emergent properties, shaped by their history of interactions, their network of relationships (e.g., who they stake with or extend credit to), and their contributions as computed by the network. **Significance:** Understanding agency as "born in protocol" allows us to design economic systems that are more nuanced, context-aware, and computationally sophisticated. It moves beyond simplistic notions of agency based solely on ownership or external status, enabling the emergence of truly Internet native economic agents whose power and potential are intrinsically tied to the rich, programmable medium of the network protocol itself. ## From transactional actors to expressive agents: Economic agency as medium-native intelligence --- Related context items - What is emerging? * [Economic media](https://hackmd.io/@ECSA/Hk9fV7KHle) * [Network value protocols](https://hackmd.io/@ECSA/S1iCrmYrgl) * [Internet-native](https://hackmd.io/@ECSA/BJCE-NYBxe) * [Economic agent](https://hackmd.io/@ECSA/ryGqU7KHlx) * [Internet native economic agent: a new paradigm in value computation](https://hackmd.io/@ECSA/SyUNVEFBex)