Ven (currency)
Ven (VEN) is a global digital currency traded in international financial markets and originally used by members of a social network service, Hub Culture, to buy, share, and trade knowledge, goods, and services. The value of Ven is determined on the financial markets from a basket of currencies, commodities and carbon futures. It trades against major currencies at floating exchange rates. Ven is currently listed on the LMAX Exchange. It has also been traded on the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange.
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What is Ven currency?
Ven was one of the early digital currencies. Stan formed it in 2007 as a way to reduce exchange rates and fees for sales made internally on Hub Culture. In the eight years that Ven has been around, Hub Culture has focused on growing a strong foundation for it as a stable, green currency that can operate within existing financial regulation.
To create a stable currency, Hub Culture decided to make Ven asset backed and rule-based. As opposed to a fiat currency that derives its value from trust in the issuer and supply and demand, an asset backed currency derives its value from its underlying asset. For example, when the United States dollar was a gold standard it could (theoretically) be traded in for gold and was thus an asset backed currency. In the case of Ven, the underlying assets are commodities, oil, currencies, futures, and other exchange-traded assets which are chosen by the Ven Central Reserve Board. However, while a central board choses the types of assets that underlie Ven, the board is not able to manipulate the price of the currency. An algorithm controls the price of Ven. This combination of (i) trust based on the knowledge that Ven always has the value of the underlying assets and (ii) a rule-based system for determining price creates a stable currency that is ant-inflationary.
Another difference between Ven and other digital currencies is that Hub Culture is attempting to write a “social contract” into Ven by making it environmentally friendly. Stan noted that governmental currencies have social contracts whereby the government issuing the currency also provides goods and services like roads and drinking water. New digital currencies, he explained, lack this social contract because they provide no social good other than as a mechanism of exchange. With Ven, however, a portion (usually 7%) of the assets that back it consist of carbon futures. Stan explained that as Ven scales, the asset basket that backs it will have to scale. This growth means more carbon futures will be bought. That increased demand for carbon futures could result in a higher cost for carbon futures and thus incentivize the lowering of carbon emissions[1].
History
In 2009, The Wall Street Journal described the currency as being pegged to the US dollar, and used by Hub Culture’s users to trade goods, services, and knowledge. One user described having been paid in Ven for making introductions and other favors.
In 2010, the company announced that carbon pricing contracts were added to the weighted basket that determines the value of Ven.
In April 2011, Hub Culture announced the first commodity trade priced in Ven, in a gold production contract valued at more than 233,000 Ven. Later that month, the company announced the first carbon offset credit trade priced in Ven, between American Carbon Registry (ACR), a carbon registry run by Winrock International, and Mata no Peito, an environmental coalition that includes ACR and Hub Culture as partners. In September 2011, Hub Culture announced that Ven would be available on Thomson Reuters’ data network and terminals.
In 2012, Hub Culture announced the development of Ven Funds, derivative financial products based on the Ven, including micro-finance and commodity asset pools.
In January 2014, Ven became the first digital currency to begin trading in regulated Forex markets, on the LMAX Exchange.
According to leaked emails, Stan Stalnaker pitched Ven as a fundraising tool for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in May 2015. Campaign chairman John Podesta expressed interest in this offer, but it was not implemented due to time restraints.
Ven trading
Ven is used to purchase anything from “jets to juice” within the Hub Culture store network, and is the tender accepted at Hub Culture Pavilions. Members are using the currency to accelerate everything from pricing produce in localized community gardens to micro-funding for development projects, high level knowledge sharing, even as incentives for villa rentals in the Hamptons, Bali, Mexico, Switzerland and other resorts around the world.
Ven can be sent to any Hub member with zero friction via an internal trading platform, or traded in exchange for knowledge and favors.
Accept Ven for micro-payments by including the Ven Symbol or button, with a link to a Ven account using our API documentation at VenMoney.net. It’s free, simple and instant. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts can link to Ven for easily integrated transactions using approved buttons.