The Internet of Value - Paper Critique

"Man, you're thinking, researching and experimenting too much to make The Internet of Value perfect. Some random white guys funded by big universities are gonna release a paper, and you're gonna be screwed." Some of my public policy friends used to joke and my answer has always been... More about it in the conclusion.

Just stumbled upon a paper about The Internet of Value on science direct. And here's my critique of the same. This has been published after sending a personal mail to all the authors of the paper.

The paper builds its framework around Blockchain Technology (BCT), tokenization, smart contracts, and digital platforms, claiming these innovations hold the key to unlocking value exchanges. Sure, on the surface, it sounds like a frictionless utopia. But here’s where the paper goes off the rails—it seems to believe value can magically emerge from technology alone, without human labor and market dynamics as the driving forces behind it.

1. Tokenization ≠ Value Creation

One of the biggest issues here is the paper’s over-reliance on tokenization as a stand-in for value creation. In this framework, value seems to appear once you slap a token on something. But let’s not forget: tokenization is just a digital marker—it doesn’t create anything on its own. Real value comes from people—human effort, labor, skill, and creativity. Without that, you’re just trading in empty promises.

Our approach with The Internet of Value (IoV) is rooted in this reality. We put people at the center of value creation. The token in our protocol stack is not just a speculative asset floating around cyberspace; it’s a security token representing a community that holds real value in the institutional landscape. This community token creates a vital bridge between state and market, balancing the two forces to empower individuals.

So while tokenization helps streamline the exchange process, it’s the labor, skill, and market negotiation that breathe life into the economy. You can tokenize a community’s assets all you want, but if there’s no work or skill behind them, what are we really trading?

2. Market Forces: The Missing Link

The paper’s framework assumes value exchange happens in some vacuum, as if peer-to-peer transactions can function without a marketplace to determine the worth of those exchanges. But the truth is, value emerges from markets. Labor, skills, and commodities have to be valued through negotiation in a market context. You can automate these transactions with smart contracts, but you can’t automate the market dynamics that make them meaningful.

In contrast, The Internet of Value embraces community capitalism, where markets are rooted in the exchange of labor, skills, and ideas. These markets aren’t top-down systems driven by crony capitalism; they’re community-driven systems where participants negotiate their worth. Our protocol ensures that human decision-making and value negotiation remain central to every transaction.

3. Sustainability: Good Buzzword, Weak Execution

The paper leans heavily on sustainability as a selling point. But let’s get real—just because you can track a supply chain via blockchain doesn’t mean you’ve solved the sustainability puzzle. Sure, technology can make processes more efficient, but sustainability ultimately relies on human behavior—specifically, labor practices, ethical sourcing, and the demands of the market.

The IoV protocol doesn’t stop at transparency; it empowers communities to take charge of their own resources and labor practices, creating incentives for sustainable choices. This isn’t just about seeing where your product comes from—it’s about building systems that reward ethical and sustainable labor.

4. The Fallacy of Disintermediation

The paper idolizes the idea of cutting out intermediaries—banks, governments, corporations. But even in decentralized systems, power tends to concentrate in the hands of a few—whether they’re miners, developers, or those with the most tokens. The idea that Blockchain will magically solve crony capitalism without any checks or balances is overly optimistic. If anything, it could shift control to a new set of elites who hold the most digital assets.

Our solution? Reinvigorating communities as powerful economic actors. In our protocol, the token is not just a vehicle for speculation. It represents real institutional power that balances state and market, giving communities a say in how value is created and distributed. By embedding human decision-making into the structure, we ensure that the power dynamics don’t just shift from one elite to another.

5. Labor and Market as the Foundation of Value

The most glaring omission in this paper is its failure to recognize that value is, and always has been, rooted in labor and market forces. The authors seem to believe that by tokenizing assets and automating transactions, we’ll somehow stumble into value creation. But let’s be honest—tokens are just digital placeholders. The real value comes from the work, the skills, and the human energy that fuel the economy.

The Internet of Value is built on this very principle. We emphasize that labor is the foundation of all value, and community-based markets are where this value is negotiated and exchanged. Our protocol stack is human-readable and actionable, designed to put people back in the center of economic transactions, ensuring that every token represents real work, real skills, and real value.

The Internet of Value Isn’t Just Tech, It’s Human

This paper is a fascinating exploration of blockchain’s potential, but it misses a fundamental truth: technology alone doesn’t create value—people do. Tokenization and smart contracts can help facilitate exchanges, but real value comes from labor, markets, and human decision-making.

The Internet of Value puts humans right at the heart of the system. Our protocol isn’t just about decentralization for the sake of it. It’s about using technology to empower communities—balancing state and market forces while creating value rooted in labor and human creativity.

That’s how we move from token hype to real, sustainable change. If you would like to read more on what we have been upto and the book chapter's?snippets you can read them here:?https://theinternetofvalue.xyz/the-internet-of-value-book Am open to debates and discussion on this topic

So if you're wondering what my response was to my friends ?

It has evolved from a very serious

"What do I do ? my small town Indian mentality and insecurities want it to be perfect so it won't be laughed at as an yet another Indian parlour trick"         

to the recent

You can try and read my lyrics off of this paper before I lay 'em
But you won't take the sting out these words before I say 'em
'Cause ain't no way I'ma let you stop me from causin' mayhem
When I say I'm a do somethin', I do it         

And I usually get a dry "Ok, Eminem with a shitty accent".

Anyway, am glad that the term "Internet of Value" is catching on, we’re not just theorizing here. We’re building systems where real value comes from labor, markets, and communities—not from tokenized hype or academic papers. I can’t wait for non-academics to jump into the conversation, to really debate, discuss, and challenge these ideas in ways that matter.

Diatribes, debates, discussions, discourse —name your arena, and I’ll be there, with math and 7 years of proof of work in hand. I just hope you bring yours, too or am gonna decimate you.